
G Cb ^2. 



t*n 



TRUTHS 



THE WEST INDIES. 



BY THE SAME WRITER, 
SHORTLY TO APPEAR, IN THREE VOLUMES, 

THE MOTHER AND DAUGHTER; 

A TALE OF HIGH LIFE. 



" Year after year rolled on. The Prophet and the Prophecy were alike 
forgotten by this gay and heartless being. 

" She was yet fated, however, to drain the cup of affliction to the dregs, — 
to learn that misery alone can spring from perjury and broken vows. 

" The fearful denunciation uttered in his despair by him whom she had 
destroyed was once more to resound in her ears : and the hour was approach- 
ing, when, crushed to the earth, and refusing to be comforted, she, in her 
turn, would cry out in the excess of her agony,—' This is truly the hand of 
God.'" 




TRUTHS 
FROM THE WEST INDIES. 



INCLUDING A SKETCH OF 
MADEIRA IN 1833. 



CAPTAIN STUDHOLME HODGSON, 

HER MAJESTY'S 19TH REGIMENT OF FOOT. 



" Sworn to no party, of no sect am I : 
I can't be silent, and I will not lie." — Pope. 



LONDON:— WILLIAM BALL, 

PATERNOSTER ROW. 
1838. 



°11 



'OS- 



LONDON : 
R. CLAY, TRINTER, BREAD-STREET -HILL. 









TO THE RIGHT HONOURABLE 

THE LORD VISCOUNT HOWICK, 

IN WHOM, 

AS THE HIGH-MINDED AND UNCOMPROMISING ADVOCATE, ON ALL 

OCCASIONS, OF EVERY LIBERAL PRINCIPLE, 

THE COUNTRY RECOGNISES 

A WORTHY HEIR TO HIS ILLUSTRIOUS FATHER; 

TO WHOM, 

DURING THE SHORT PERIOD OF HIS CONNEXION AVITH THEIR 

ADMINISTRATION, 

THE COLONIES LOOKED UP WITH UNUSUAL CONFIDENCE, 

INSPIRED BY THE JUSTICE OF HIS AIMS, 

AND THE COMPREHENSIVENESS OF HIS VIEWS; 

AND WHO, 

WITH REFERENCE MORE PARTICULARLY TO THE SUBJECT OF 

THIS WORK, 

HAS BEEN DISTINGUISHED ALIKE 

FOR THE SAGACITY WHICH ENABLED HIM TO FORETEL THOSE EVILS, 

WHICH IT IS NOW, THOUGH LATE, ATTEMPTED TO REPAIR ; 

FOR THE INTEGRITY 

WITH WHICH HE RENOUNCED ALL PARTICIPATION IN A MEASURE 

WHICH HE DID NOT APPROVE; 

AND 

FOR THE MIXTURE OF INDEPENDENCE AND GOOD FAITH 

WITH WHICH HE ASSERTED HIS OPINION, WITHOUT BETRAYING 

OR DESERTING HIS ASSOCIATES; 

€|je follotouig $ages 

ARE, BY HIS LORDSHIP'S PERMISSION, INSCRIBED 
BY 

THE WRITER. 



PREFACE. 



These pages, with the exception of the last 
two chapters, were written in the West 
Indies, and would have been submitted at 
an earlier period to the public, had I not, 
since my return to this country, been in a 
state of health unfitting me for mental 
exertion, (and even now precluding the 
careful revision of what I had noted down.) 
Considerable delay in publication having 
thus unavoidably occurred, I contemplated 
relinquishing the subject; hoping, also, that 
the colonists, even at the twelfth hour, might 
be prompted to evince something like mercy 



i 



towards their unfortunate negroes, in which 
case I should have regretted to re-open ani- 
mosities. 

Deceived in this latter point, I at length 
send out these " Truths? cautioning the 
people of England that they too will be 
deceived, if they for one moment believe 
that the colonists, in emancipating their 
apprentices, have other objects in view than 
to lull the attention of the public in this 
country, and then, by a series of local enact- 
ments, to bring back our free negro brethren 
to a condition scarcely one degree removed 
from absolute personal slavery. 

The portion of the volume written in the 
West Indies, was, on my arrival in England, 
perused by Mr. Macaulay. That good man 
was even then on the bed of sickness, which 
was to be to him that of death. His 



expiring faculties were however aroused 
whenever the righteous cause, to which he 
had rendered such mighty service, was 
alluded to ; and he conveyed: to me not 
only the expression of his anxiety that 
what I had prepared should be published, 
but the full assurance of his countenance 
and protection, should it please Providence 
to prolong his life. 

From those, to whom the name and 
memory of Macaulay are dear, I will fear- 
lessly ask what Macaulay himself would 
have rendered. 

STUDHOLME HODGSON. 



a S 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER I. 

PAGE 

Departure from England — Arrival in Madeira — First Scenes 
— Hints to future Travellers — Corruption among the Public 
Functionaries — Consumption — Affecting Instance — Miss 
F. — Conduct of the British Merchants — Don Alvaro da 
Costa — Anecdote — Domain of M. de Cavalho .... 1 



CHAPTER II. 

Arrival in the "West Indies — Object of these Sketches — Fault 
of former Works — State of Party — Fury of the Planters — 
Plans to cripple the Abolition Bill — Origin of Reports 
respecting Insurrections — Motives 21 

CHAPTER III. 

The Church in the West Indies— A Bishop— The Bar— A 
Judge — An Attorney- General — Scene in Court — Stipen- 
diary Magistrates — How selected by Mr. Stanley — Worse 
than useless — Causes 35 



Xll CONTENTS. 

?AGK 

CHAPTER IV. 

Qualifications to ensure entry into the Colonial Beau-monde 
— The different Castes described by a Lady-Patroness — 
Mulatto — Mustie — Fustie — Costie — Sambo — Utter want of 
Morality in both Sexes — Merchants and Store-keepers — 
Trait of paternal and fraternal Affection — A Domestic 
Tragedy 58 



CHAPTER V. 

Private Society continued— Sir Ralph Woodford — His Efforts 
to introduce Refinement — The Rum Law — Anecdote — 
Mania among the Colonists for Military Rank — The Court 
at Trinidad — The Immaculate Vice- Treasurer 74 



CHAPTER VI. 

Digression — Sir George Hill, Governor of Trinidad — Debate 
in Parliament — Mr. O'Connell's Opinion of Sir G. Hill — 
Mr. Spring Rice's— Mr. R. Gordon's — Mr. Hume's — Mr. 
G. R. Dawson's — Sir J. Newport's — Mr. Wilks's — Alder- 
man Waithman's — Mr. Strickland's — Mr. D. W. Harvey's 
— Public Opinion as expressed through the Press . . . 



CHAPTER VII. 

Class from which the Public Functionaries are selected — The 
Principles of these — The Duke of "Wellington's Friend 
M'Sawnie — An Overseer — A Manager — A Planter — The 
Climax 101 



CONTENTS. Xlll 

PAGE 

CHAPTER VIII. 

Glance at the former Treatment of Slaves — Maxim of the 
Planters — How acted upon — Anecdote — No Instruction 
allowed the Negroes — An Idiom formed for them — Motives 
— All Religious Ceremonies scorned — A Funeral among 
the Whites — Error of the Anti- Slavery Party — Gratitude 
owed to the Missionaries — Their excellent Doctrines — 
Mrs. Carmichael's Calumnies— Character and Demeanour 
of the Methodist Preachers 110 

CHAPTER IX. 

Disproportion between the Sexes — Causes — Task- work — 
Flogging — Armed Collars — Sweating Stocks — Cases of 
Atrocity — Conduct of the Colonial Ladies — Anecdote of 
one — Depravities on a Plantation — Anecdote — Hints as to 
what a Commission might detect — A Lottery — The Prizes 
— Impunity with which Murders of Negroes were com- 
mitted before the "Abolition Act" — A Document well 
worthy of perusal 139 

CHAPTER X. 

Curious History of a Black Man — His Remarks on the 
Colonial System in the Island of Trinidad 173 

CHAPTER XL 

Lawlessness of the Colonists — Curious Instance — Danger 
attending Liberalism — Examples — Mr. Buxton — Admiral 
Fleming — The Militia— The Press— Judge Scotland— A 
worthy Tory — The entire Colonial System exposed in the 
Case of Mr. Young Anderson — Hint to the Whigs — 
Anecdote 184 



CONTENTS. 



CHAPTER XII. 

Plans to obtain White Slaves — Carried into effect — Portu- 
guese Victims — Fay aland Madeira — The frightful Condition 
of the cajoled — Havoc among them — A Voice from the 
Dead— Appeal to Portugal — Solemn Warning to Emigrants 212 

CHAPTER XIII. 

Colonial Governors — How selected by the Tories— Never 
supported by that Party — Difficulties encountered by them 
— Firmness of the Whig Ministry — Sir Lionel Smith — 
Barbadoes on his Arrival — His Government — A Tory Go- 
vernor — Description of the Colony under him — Portrait of 
a Governor as he should not be . 228 



CHAPTER XIV. 

Addresses of Mr. Stanley previous to 1st August — How- 
received — Conduct of some of the Public Officers in the 
Colonies — Tory Preaching and Advice — Tory Governments 
always averse to Emancipation — Dangers Prophesied — The 
Prophets — Their Victims — Hint to Government concerning 
a certain Solicitor-General — Antigua — Attempt to ruin that 
Colony — Negroes kept in ignorance of what was really in- 
tended — Anecdote in proof — Worse treated as 1st August 
approached — Cat-o'-nine-tails — The Abolitionists perse- 
cuted — Mr. S. Le Fevre — Barbadoes described by him . . ! 

CHAPTER XV. 

Martial Law desired — The King's Troops — Feeling in the 
Army — Trifling Exceptions — Trinidad looked to by other 
Colonies — Why — Contemplated Butchery — Lieutenant- 



CONTENTS. XV 

PAGE 

Colonel Hardy, 19th Regiment — Warlike Preparations — 
Militia — 1st August — The Governor's Address to the Ne- 
groes — How received — Sanguinary Feeling against them — 
Trinidad at Night — Ludicrous Militia Dispute .... 266 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Demand for Troops — Alarming Reports — Appeal to Colonel 
Hardy — Further Attempts at Martial Law — Horrible 
Occurrence — Flogging Parade — Subsequent Floggings — 
Astounding Fact— Sir George Hill, Bart— Colonel Hardy, 290 

CHAPTER XVII. 

Abolition Act failed — "Why — Ministers opposed by their own 
Officers — Treacherous Conduct towards the Apprentices — 
Joseph Sturge — Swindling connected with the " Compen- 
sation" — Lord Glenelg's proper Conduct — Number of 
Lashes inflicted — Lord Glenelg on the Flogging of the 
Women — Summary of the whole — Want of Schools and 
Churches — Trinidad 313 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

Political Dissertation on the now Altered Condition of the 
Blacks— Duties of this Country towards her Free Black 
Citizens — How to be performed — Great Points for Con- 
sideration — All depends on the People — Hints to the 
Emancipationists — Conclusion 329 



Notes 353 



( 



TRUTHS 



THE WEST. INDIES- 



CHAPTER I. 

Departure from England — Arrival in Madeira — First Scenes — 
Hints to future Travellers — Corruption among the public 
Functionaries — Consumption — Affecting Instance — Miss F. — 
Conduct of the British Merchants — Don Alvaro da Costa — 
Anecdote — Domain of M. de Cavalho. 

On the 22& of October, 1833, I left the Downs, 
and on the 3d of the following month arrived in 
Madeira. 

At the period of my departure from England, 
the winter was setting in with extreme severity, 
and will long be remembered by the' merchant 
service, from the loss it sustained.* 



* Ninety thousand tons of shipping were destroyed before the 
month of December. 



2 ARRIVAL AT MADEIRA. 

In the Channel, we encountered numberless 
vessels running to port, where, as the event 
proved, they were destined to remain for months ; 
w r e, however, seized the favourable moment, and 
had the good fortune to get to sea. 

Perhaps the first and most lasting impression 
made by a speedy voyage to Madeira, under the 
preceding circumstances, is rapture at finding one- 
self wafted in a few days, as if by magic, from the 
very centre of snow and winter to the charms of 
an exquisite spring. I never remember to have 
experienced so delightful a sensation, as on first 
setting foot on this island. The climate and my 
liberation from a crowded vessel, occasioned an 
exuberance of spirits which at first led me to 
regard every object through the happy medium 
of my own feeling : this, however, gradually sub- 
sided, and I was enabled to look around me with 
that calmness and impartiality so requisite in a 
chronicler of facts. I suspect other visitors to 
this spot have recovered less easily from their 
enthusiasm ; on this supposition alone can I un- 
derstand the unqualified nature of their praises. 



FIRST SCENES. 3 

I do not intend to enter upon a detailed 
description of Madeira; the subject has been 
handled by too many eloquent and glowing pens ; 
but I consider myself called upon to point out some 
of the serious blemishes which have been forgotten 
or concealed by former writers. 

In the first place, it would be difficult to 
convey an idea of the filth it is necessary to wade 
through, and the objects of disgust by which at 
every instant the senses are assailed, before the 
arrival at an hotel can be effected. Bands of 
sturdy beggars, almost in a state of nudity, greet 
the traveller on his arrival, exposing to view 
ghastly wounds, and thrusting themselves upon 
his notice with an eagerness and ferocity not 
only revolting, but appalling. Should they find 
their demands for alms unheeded, the}^ will often 
with dreadful execrations throw vermin from their 
persons upon any ladies who may be present, 
or perhaps dash into their faces their mutilated 
and festered stumps. Having escaped from these 
loathsome objects, the visitor is exposed at every 
jail he passes to scenes almost equally shocking. 
b2 



4 FIRST SCENES. 

On his approach, the whole of the inmates rush 
to the gratings of the prison, and with yells and 
shrieks which will long echo in his ears, and with 
an appearance of famine which thrills him with 
horror, implore a compassion which no English- 
man is found to deny, when he learns that by the 
charity alone of the humane are these wretched 
people saved from almost starvation, government 
having provided no means for their support. 

I will imagine the traveller freed from these 
inconveniences, and to have succeeded in obtain- 
ing a few hours' repose. After this commence 
troubles of a different kind. It is necessary to 
obtain from the authorities at the Custom-house 
a permit for the landing of the baggage, as not 
even the most trifling article is allowed to be 
brought on shore without a written order: and 
to prevent any deviation from this rule, an officer 
is stationed on board every ship during the whole 
period of her anchorage in the harbour, paid and 
supported by the captain. On sending for any 
portion of baggage, woe betide you if there be 
marked in the order " small trunk," when port- 



HINTS TO FUTURE TRAVELLERS. b 

manteau was intended : neither explanation nor. 
entreaties will soften the heart of the Cerberus on 
board; and to your dismay the messenger will 
return empty-handed, except, taught wisdom by 
experience, he has had the tact to employ the 
potent influence of a bribe. And here I cannot 
but remark upon the shameful effrontery with 
which the functionaries of Madeira accept pecu- 
niary presents : no concealment appears requisite ; 
there they stand, with outstretched palms and 
clamorous solicitations, exposed to the gaze of 
multitudes of their own countrymen as well as 
of foreigners. I was given to understand that 
these scandalous proceedings were sanctioned by 
government, as an excellent expedient by which 
to remunerate its servants without cost to the 
state. I do not extend entire credence to the 
existence of so corrupt a system; still I am 
bound to say, that what I witnessed in other 
instances induces me strongly to suspect that the 
charge is not without foundation. For the benefit 
of future visitors, I must not neglect to mention, 
that there is one occasion where even a bribe will 



6 CORRUPTION AMONG THE 

be found without avail ; that is, when the articles 
required from the vessel are not passed through 
the Custom-house before two o'clock p. m. ; in 
which event it is absolutely necessary to remain 
without them until the following day. I was 
unable to learn the origin or advantage of this 
regulation, but am led to believe, that the officers, 
like the servants at inns in France, are bound 
among themselves to share, in equal proportions, 
the various sums individually received. Hence 
the benefit to them of this rule is manifest, as in 
the event of there being any technical error in the 
designation of the baggage, no time is left for its 
correction on that day; and the generality of 
persons prefer submitting to robbery rather than 
endure the inconvenience of a delay of four-and- 
twenty hours. So rigidly is this law enforced, 
that a friend of mine desirous, about half-past 
two o'clock, of obtaining from among his wife's 
effects a small parcel of the utmost consequence, 
she being in a very precarious state of health, 
ventured on the liberty of soliciting an interview 
with the governor. 



PUBLIC FUNCTIONARIES. 7 

His excellency received him with the utmost 
courtesy, but could not accede to his request 
without the concurrence of the judge, nor the 
judge without that of the bishop. After a long 
consultation it was decided, that it would be 
inexpedient to infringe the regulation in question ; 
and my friend, at the risk of his wife's life, had no 
alternative but acquiescence in the fiat. 

"When at length you have the good fortune to 
find yourself disentangled from these difficulties, 
and fixed in one of the delightful villas, you are in 
a fit mood to relish the charms of the climate and 
the place. 

I can fancy no scenery, and I have travelled 
over most parts of Europe and a large portion of 
Asia, more lovely, more majestic, than that of 
this enchanting island. On the hills, as far as the 
temperature will admit, are vines of extraordinary 
uxuriance ; while even the loftiest mountains are 
adorned with a perpetual verdure. 

Here reign in unbroken succession alternate 
spring and autumn ; utterly unknown are the 
scorching heat of summer and the icy chill of 



O CONSUMPTION. 

winter. The eye is enraptured by the view 
of a perpetual bloom, and the traveller ranges 
through meadows where grow spontaneously 
flowers, raised with difficulty even in the green- 
houses of England, and scrambles through 
hedges composed of the myrtle, the rose, and the 
jasmine. 

Notwithstanding these charms, predisposing the 
mind to cheerfulness and happiness, I must con- 
fess that there came across me sombre and melan- 
choly feelings, which went far to neutralize the 
whole. I reflected how numerous had been the 
young, the lovely, and the noble, sent, and sent, 
alas ! in vain, to Madeira for the recovery of their 
health. How few, indeed, of a certain class ever 
visit it but with this object. I walked through 
the churchyard dedicated to foreigners, and sur- 
veyed with shuddering the many, many records of 
the ravages effected by that insidious foe, con- 
sumption. I pictured to myself the scenes of woe 
which have here occurred. I imagined the agony 
of a mother accompanying her child to this land of 
promise, and after months of excitement, now 



AFFECTING INSTANCE. V 

despairing, now hoping, at length laying that 
child in the sepulchre of the stranger. I had no 
reason, however, to conjure up a phantom of ima- 
gination ; I witnessed the reality in all its painful 
truth. To describe the case, I must revert to a 
few months previous. In the midst of the London 
season, at perhaps the brightest Almacks of the 
year, my eye was attracted by the most exqui- 
sitely beautiful girl whom it has ever been my lot 
to behold. Few paintings ever equalled that 
lovely face, or sculptures that unrivalled form. 
There she was, the young, the beautiful, and the 
gay, blooming with health and spirits, happy and 
courted, enrapturing by her wit and smiles a whole 
galaxy of stars and ribbands. Little, little did I 
then foresee when and where I was again to en- 
counter this brilliant vision ; still less that when 
next it crossed my path, it would be descending 
rapidly to the grave : but so, alas ! it was. Five 

short months from the above period, Miss 

once more met my sight : it was at Madeira. Her 
countenance had then an unearthly softness of ex- 
pression, which can never fade from my memory; 
b3 



10 CONSUMPTION. 

otherwise in appearance she was unchanged : 
the same matchless features, the same perfection 
of form, the same heavenly smile. But one glance 
sufficed to tell me that death had marked this 
angelic being for his own. Unlike the generality 
of victims to consumption, she was well aware of 
her approaching fate; and notwithstanding this 
awful certainty, two feelings alone appeared to 
agitate her spotless mind : the one was the hope 
that her life might yet be spared sufficiently long 
to enable her once again in this world to embrace 
her brother ; the other was the bitter reflection as 
to what would be the sufferings of her mother, 
when the moment for final separation should 
arrive. 

" I am the idol," she often exclaimed, " the 
very idol of my mother. She blinds herself to 
my hopeless state ; and what, O God 1 what 
will become of her in this land of strangers, 
when she can no longer refuse to believe the fatal 
truth." 

I subsequently conversed with the afflicted 
parent: too true she did not, or would not, 



AFFECTING INSTANCE. 11 

perceive the danger of her child to its full 
extent ; and knowing the agony which would be 
the result, I had not the barbarity to whisper 
my thoughts. 

" It is," she said, " but a temporary weakness ; 
what malady can lurk under that bloom ? She is 
suffering from a cold consequent on an imprudent 
exposure to the night air, but this genial climate 
will soon restore her to her friends." 

On inquiry, I discovered that this cold, this 
death warrant, had been received at that very 
Almacks where I had seen her so brilliant, so 
cheerful, so courted. Inscrutable indeed are the 
ways of Providence ! 

I will not attempt to describe my feelings when 

I called to bid farewell. Mrs. was almost a 

stranger to me ; but under peculiar circumstances 
those barriers of form are broken through in a 
moment, which in the usual routine of life would 
require years to remove ; and believing firmly that 
heartfelt sympathy occasions a corresponding feel- 
ing of kindness, even among perfect strangers, and 
without the interchange of a single syllable, my 



12 CONSUMPTION. 

heart assured me that I had acquired a friend for 
ever. Nor am I ashamed to confess that my cheeks 
were bedewed with the bitterest tears which I 
have shed since childhood, when six weeks 
afterwards I learned by the public journals 
that this charming girl was numbered with the 
dead. 

Of the numerous invalids annually arriving 
in Madeira, it is truly melancholy to observe 
how small a proportion are destined to quit it. 
It is with pain, and only after a rigid scrutiny, 
that I venture on this assertion. The climate I 
have acknowledged pure and genial ; and if climate 
alone could cure, recovery would be certain. But 
the truth is, the victims arrive too late ; their 
fate in this world is irrevocably sealed long before 
they abandon the shores of their own country. 
The medical men, in many instances, from the 
hope of being able themselves to restore their 
interesting patients to health, tamper too long, and 
counsel a change of climate when no change can 
avail. In others, they fear to alarm, by even 
hinting at a removal to Madeira ; and the propo- 



CONDUCT OF THE BRITISH MERCHANTS. 13 

sition eventually is, perhaps, suggested by the very 
dying party, to whom months previous it should 
have been made. The result in both cases is the 
same : a tedious voyage, succeeded by a certain 
death. 

I will not detain the reader with descriptions of 
local scenery, nor of private life ; but as it may 
not be uninteresting to learn the effect produced 
in the island by the civil war then waging in the 
mother country, I will proceed to offer a few 
words on the state of Madeira in the year 1833, 
leaving others to pronounce whether our national 
mania for meddling was advantageous, or the 
reverse, to this particular spot. 

Every mind was absorbed in the contemplation 
of the struggle carrying on between the two bro- 
thers of the house of Braganza, and in intrigues, 
according to the political bias of the different 
parties. 

Private society was completely destroyed; dis- 
cord pervaded every family; commerce was de- 
pressed ; the results of the violence with which 
the British merchants had entered the arena 



14 DON ALVARO DA COSTA. 

of political dissension.* The rancour and bitter- 
ness of party spirit evinced by these individuals 
surpass almost any thing of the description wit- 
nessed by me, even in England, and were the less 
excusable, as they were bound by the position 
they held as foreigners, and in a land where they 
were only tolerated on sufferance, not to cabal 
against the government, which, however execrated, 
and justly execrated by its own subjects, had 
always, to them, at least, extended a beneficent 
and protecting hand. And while on this subject, 
it would be unjust to pass over in silence the 
officer to whom the government of Madeira had 
at this time been confided, Don Alvaro da Costa. 

Notwithstanding his intimate knowledge of the 
cabals carrying on against him, personally, as well 
as against the government of which he was the 
representative, still mildness and urbanity charac- 
terised his every proceeding, while nothing could 
exceed the promptness and justice with which he 

* I must exonerate Mr. Webster Gordon from any participation 
in these unworthy proceedings ; his conduct throughout was, as it 
always is, that of a gentleman, a man of the world, and true British 
merchant. 



ANECDOTE. 15 

listened to and decided upon every grievance 
brought under his notice by the British residents, 
who owe to this upright and excellent man a 
debt of gratitude which they never can repay. 
They cannot be ignorant that he alone saved their 
properties from utter destruction, it being but natu- 
ral that indignation should pervade the breasts of a 
large portion of the population at witnessing their 
national disputes fomented and encouraged by the 
intrigues of foreigners, and at receiving almost daily 
intelligence of relatives and friends having, in the 
mother country, fallen in engagements with the 
English. I more particularly remember one family 
being deprived, in a single day, of the father and 
three sons ; could we have felt surprise had bitter 
retaliation been the consequence ? 

That this did not occur, that aggression was not 
visited with aggression, nor blood avenged with 
blood, the merchants of Madeira are jj&ebbted solely 
to Don Alvaro da Costa. The following anecdote 
is characteristic of his forbearance, and will, I 
trust, call up blushes of shame when, the excite- 
ment of politics having passed away, the personages 



16 ANECDOTE. 

alluded to will be enabled to scrutinize their 
actions through a medium more creditable to their 
country, and to their calling. 

A clerk of one of the leading mercantile houses 
having become enamoured of a Portuguese young 
lady, made proposals of marriage, the rejection of 
which by the father, led him to the design of 
assassinating him. 

Waylaying him one evening, he rushed upon 
him, pulling at the same time the trigger of a 
pistol, which fortunately missing fire, enabled the 
old man to commence a struggle with his assailant. 
It was, however, but brief; what could avail 
age, and age defenceless, against youth and wea- 
pons ? The grey-headed victim was felled to the 
earth, and his adversary, drawing a second pistol 
from his pocket, deliberately discharged its con- 
tents into the body of the prostrate father, in 
vain imploring mercy for his daughter's sake. 
The miscreant was seized and conveyed to prison ; 
and then commenced the intrigues of the English 
faction. Tears of compassion were shed for this 
" poor young gentleman," (thus was the ruffian 



ANECDOTE. 17 

designated ;) subscriptions were entered into in 
his favour, plans formed to bribe the jailer, a 
place of refuge prepared for him when escaped 
from prison. In a word, this murderer — (for 
assuredly he merits the appellation, although his 
intended victim, after months of agony, eventually 
recovered from the wound) — this murderer, I re- 
peat, was regarded as a martyr in a righteous 
cause, and for no other reason, but that he pro- 
fessed himself a Pedroite, while the object of his 
vengeance had enrolled himself in the ranks of the 
opposite party. Where was the spirit of our 
fathers ? where the proverbial rectitude of the 
British merchant, when a criminal like this could 
be transformed by party feeling into a second 
Brutus — be deemed worthy of protection and ap- 
plause ? 

I am unwilling to dilate upon this disgraceful 
occurrence, and will therefore dismiss it, merely 
observing, that, before quitting Madeira, I was in- 
formed that this person had effected his flight from 
jail, and was living unmolested in the house of an 
Englishman. For here, indeed, an Englishman's 



18 DOMAIN OF M. DE CAVALHO. 

house was truly his " castle ;" and the conse- 
quence of this mistaken delicacy on the part of the 
authorities, was — and I blush in recording the fact 
— that more than one Englishman's " castle" in 
Madeira was a sanctuary for the murderer and the 
traitor ! 

Who has ever been in the island without visit- 
ing the magnificent domain of M. de Cavalho ? 
On asking if this gentleman were there, I learnt 
he had been mixed up in some conspiracy against 
the government, and had deemed it advisable to 
withdraw into exile. Sincerely lamenting the event, 
as report represents him munificent, hospitable, and 
charitable, I proceeded to his estate, although told 
by the party to which he belonged that I should 
be disappointed ; that the property, thanks to the 
government, was an absolute ruin, the trees all felled 
to the earth, and the mansion tenanted by a rude 
soldiery. I frankly confess I almost desired this 
should be the case, wishing to find my informants 
as to the state of the island, for once, not in fault. 

On arriving at the handsome iron gates, we were 
civilly received by the porters. They escorted us 



DOMAIN OF M. DE CAVALHO. 19 

in our walk, directing attention to the spots most 
worthy of observation. In vain I cast my eyes 
around for the felled trees ; the stately forest am- 
ply contradicted the calumny. In vain I looked 
for the rude band of lawless soldiers, a guard of 
three men only was there stationed to protect the 
property. The interior of the mansion exhibited 
the utmost neatness, and the costly furniture was 
preserved as carefully as if the master himself had 
been present. 

The only symptoms of devastation I could per- 
ceive, were on some superb pillars near the hall 
of entrance, on the observatory, and on the family 
chapel. 

These places, I must admit, were defaced 
by numerous couplets and phrases in the Eng- 
lish language, such as are sometimes seen at a 
country inn — the names of numerous visitors, 
English, Irish, and Scotch, with dates of arrival, 
were duly recorded; while sundry hieroglyphics, 
not of a very decent description, wound up the 
whole. The guide, without doubt, divined what 
was passing in my mind, and with a peculiar 



20 DOMAIN OF M. DE CAVALHO. 

smile observed — but I will not repeat the effu- 
sions of his honest indignation ; suffice it to say, 
that I fully coincided with him, and turned from 
the degrading exhibition with shame and disgust. 

I had now seen enough of Madeira, and on the 
following morning was many leagues on the ocean, 
sailing with a prosperous breeze for the West 
Indies. 



ARRIVAL IN THE WEST INDIES. 21 



CHAPTER II. 



Arrival in the "West Indies — Object of these Sketches — Fault of 
former Works— State of Party— Fury of the Planters — Plans to 
cripple the Abolition Bill — Origin of Reports respecting Insur- 
rections — Motives. 



In the month of December, 1833, I arrived in the 
West Indies, and served there with my regiment 
until its return to this country, towards the close 
of the year 1836. 

The following pages are submitted to the public 
with the view of showing, from the result of per- 
sonal observation, how far the West India planters 
deserve, either by their own character, or by their 
conduct towards the negroes, that degree of confi- 
dence or of forbearance which they have of late so 
arrogantly claimed at the hands of this country. 



22 OBJECT OF THESE SKETCHES. 

The period to which the notice of the reader 
will be called is that critical one which immediately 
preceded and followed the introduction of that 
most nugatory and deceptive of measures, as the 
planters have contrived hitherto to make it, the 
Act for the Establishment of Negro Apprentice- 
ship ; and a very instructive specimen of the 
manner in which that boon of the mother country 
was, in one island at least, ushered in by the 
colonial authorities, will be particularly described. 
If any one should be disposed to think that details 
of private society have been unnecessarily intro- 
duced, let him consider, in the first instance, with 
reference to the assertions of the planters and their 
agents, how much the credibility of a witness is 
affected by his habits of life, and let him remem- 
ber in the next place, that the claims which the 
negroes have upon us, whether for protection or 
instruction, cannot be duly estimated, unless we 
know what are the people to whose control they 
are subject, and what are the examples which are 
immediately before their eyes. 

Let him be assured, at any rate, that nothing 



OBJECT OF THESE SKETCHES. 23 

has herein been set down in the spirit of malice, 
or of personal detraction, and that in no instance 
will be detected a misrepresentation of facts. 
For whatever were the feelings with which the 
writer left the "West Indies, he went there with 
no other intention or desire than to see things as 
they were, and to speak of them, if at all, as they 
deserved. He was pledged to no party, and com- 
mitted to no opinion. There are, however, some 
occasions, as the reader will perhaps think, before 
he has got through these pages, in which impar- 
tiality can speak in no other language than that of 
indignation, and in which truth itself may run 
some risk, at first sight, of being taken for a libel. 
Such a case, if it should occur, may possibly be 
the misfortune of an author, but it is the fault of 
the subject; I write, however, without much 
apprehension on that score, as I am apt to believe 
that the prudence of those who may have most 
reason to quarrel with my sincerity, will either 
keep them altogether silent, or will at any rate 
confine their resentments to the use of those 
weapons so familiar to their hands, which they 



24 FAULT OF FORMER WORKS. 

have, in fact, already so long used, that the edge 
has been worn off — the weapons of calumny and 
invective. 

During a long series of years the advocates of 
the negro have spoken with eloquence, and the 
fee'd retainers of the colonists have defended their 
side with the zeal of self-interest. From this, how- 
ever, it has naturally followed, that in the works 
hitherto published respecting the West Indies a 
spirit of party is observable in every line ; and 
from the numerous conflicting statements which 
have issued from the press since the question of 
emancipation has been agitated, not one can be 
selected on which implicit reliance is to be placed, 
the enthusiasm of philanthropy sometimes exagge- 
rating the sufferings of the slave, while more often 
the lying pen of the hireling has palliated or denied 
the real oppressions of the master. 

I hope, therefore, to enable the public to arrive 
at a correct conclusion ; and this is the more im- 
portant, as the people of England, while endeavour- 
ing to achieve negro emancipation, have, in the main, 
known but little or nothing of the community 



STATE OF PARTY. 25 

respecting whose property they were about to 
decide — a community by which their holy purpose 
was so long and so virulently opposed, and to which 
has been conceded a compensation cruelly enormous 
in these days of distress — a compensation as far 
beyond their real wants and deserts as any for which 
the most visionary among them would have dared 
to hope. For the attainment of the glorious end 
no sacrifice has been considered too great ; but 
whether, upon a nearer view, it may not be per- 
ceived that generous and enthusiastic feelings 
predominated too far when the twenty millions 
compensation was so madly voted, I shall leave to 
be decided by others. 

The close of the year 1833 was indeed an im- 
portant era in the annals of the West India history. 
The mother country had at length decided upon 
the great measure of negro emancipation, and 
nothing was wanting to render it the law of the 
land beyond a few local alterations. In a few short 
months, and what a mighty revolution was to be 
effected in the entire system of our colonial posses- 
sions ! Man was about to be taught, that however 
c 



26 STATE OF PARTY. 

the hue of the complexion might differ, the time 
had passed away when he could regard and treat 
his fellow man as a beast of burthen, and that the 
slave, hitherto even worse regarded, worse treated, 
than a beast of burthen, was to have his dormant 
faculties aroused, to be told that he was still a man, 
and entitled to all the rights of humanity. It 
would be impossible to convey an idea of the 
excitement prevailing in every corner of the colo- 
nies. The fabric of society was shaken to its 
foundation, nor could the most long-sighted pre- 
sume to calculate the result. The Abolition Bill 
by no means afforded unqualified satisfaction to 
any class of the European settlers ; many, from the 
purest, most virtuous motives, lamenting that im- 
mediate freedom had not been accorded to the slave, 
and that he was still for six years to be exposed 
to the fangs of the task-master ; others, from per- 
sonally interested feelings, cavilling at one clause 
of the bill, or, from factious ones, opposing it in 
another: but by far the larger proportion were 
united in indignation at the legislature of Great 
Britain having dared, upon any grounds, to inter- 



FURY OF THE PLANTERS. 27 

fere with their property, (such was the negro 
termed,) and were resolved to exert every effort to 
render the measure abortive. 

In the breasts of these people all was worm- 
wood and gall ; from their lips flowed menaces of 
bloodshed and martial law, combined with curses 
against the mother country, the whole conveyed in 
language so demoniacal as to make us blush for 
the pseudo-civilized race. And these men were 
Christians ! 

Now let us contrast the bearing of the slave with 
that of the master, the oppressed with the oppressor. 

While every thing around him was violence and 
excitement ; hearing himself at all moments stig- 
matized as the vilest of the vile ; exposed to the 
most capricious and most brutal treatment ; marked 
out as the object for future slaughter, might not 
some little ebullition of the human passions have 
been pardoned ? Thank God, he gave no handle 
to his tyrants ; all remained tranquil ; naught 
occurred at which the friend of the negro need 
sigh. Tens, yea hundreds of thousands of human 
beings were cooped up, panting for the blessed 
c2 



28 PLANS TO CRIPPLE 

boon vouchsafed to them in prospective by Eng- 
land ; but they waited with a patience more than 
human for the fulfilment of the promise. And 
these were savages ! Alas for the misapplication 
of terms! 

The reader may, in some degree, imagine the 
spirit with which the colonial legislators assembled 
at their Council Boards, for the purpose of con- 
sidering the measure submitted to them by the 
Imperial Parliament ; but he would find it difficult 
to credit the full extent of their absurd and frantic 
schemes. 

They not only declared solemnly, that no con- 
sideration should induce their acquiescence in the 
bill, but talked seriously of forming the West 
Indies into independent states, or, at all events, of 
throwing themselves into the arms of America, 
ready, as they affirmed, to receive them with rapture. 
To all who may doubt these facts, I recommend 
a calm perusal of some of the colonial news- 
papers of the period,* edited for the most part 

* " Let us," advised one journal, " strengthen, by every means 
in our power, our connexion with the Canadas ; feeling the deep 



THE ABOLITION BILL. 29 

by slave proprietors, assisted in all cases by 
the advice and gold of anti-abolitionists, and 
they will find the above maniac ravings not only 
represented as sound policy, but expressed in 
treasonable and sanguinary terms. At length, 
however, perceiving the expediency of desisting 
from these impotent resolves, they commenced 
applying themselves, with all form, to the consi- 
deration, not of the bill, but of the manner in 
which they could most easily cripple it, and delay 
it in every stage. The firmness of the Govern- 
ment at home paralyzed, in a great measure, the 
nefarious plan, and it being hinted that the com- 
pensation, amounting (forget not this, people of 
England,) to twenty millions sterling, must be 
rendered dependent on their adopting the proposed 
measure, the bill was eventually carried through 
the various Houses of Assembly, not however 
without strong opposition on the part of many of 



sense of the injustice of our mother country, let us endeavour to 
forget that we ever pronounced the endearing term of ' home ' in 
reference to the unnatural mother ; let us unite hand in hand 
with Canada, and endeavour to compel the people of England to 
do us justice, or leave us to ourselves." 



SO ORIGIN OF REPORTS 

the members. The utter ruin of the colonies was 
prophesied by these sage traffickers in human flesh, 
a general rising among the negroes was to be the 
inevitable result of their liberation, and their first 
act the extermination of the whites. It was hoped 
by these forebodings to intimidate the admini- 
stration in England, to obtain an alteration in 
some of the most important clauses, and perhaps 
defer for the present the application of the very 
principle of the bill. 

The following are some of the arts practised to 
deceive the English public into a belief that the 
moment freedom was accorded to the slave, rebel- 
lion would display her standard from one end to 
the other of our West India possessions. 

New colonial journals were called into existence, 
whose editors were commanded to dedicate their 
columns to fearful descriptions of the well-grounded 
panic existing among the European population, 
with dark and mysterious hints as to conspiracies 
existing on many of the estates, the object of 
which was the murder of the various proprietors. 
Government was called upon to be prepared with 



RESPECTING INSURRECTIONS. 31 

martial law ; an opposition was organized against 
every governor who might be disposed to lean to 
the side of humanity ; anonymous letters were at 
night scattered about the public streets, and thrown 
into the gardens of individuals, containing warn- 
ings at which any man might have been moved 
without the charge of weakness.* All this, it is 
true, envenomed still more deeply the feelings of 
the colonists against their slaves, but signally failed 
in goading these poor people into a display of 
impatience or irritation, (the great wish of the 
planters,) and which would have afforded a cor- 
roboration of their assertions as to the awful 
position in which the mad scheme of freeing the 
blacks had placed them. Repeatedly, at night, 
flames were seen ascending from different estates ; 
the bell of alarm resounded from a thousand 



* Such was the alarm among the uninitiated, that on Christ- 
mas Eve, in 1833, it was deemed requisite at Barbadoes to have a 
regiment ready to turn out at a moment's notice during the night ! 
it being circulated that the negroes purposed commencing the work 
of death when the whites should have assembled at the ball given 
at Government House. I subsequently saw, in one of the London 
opposition papers, a moving description of the consternation 
prevailing among the respectable classes on the occasion alluded to ! 



32 MOTIVES. 

quarters, and the military were called out to afford 
their aid ; but on arriving at the spot, it was gene- 
rally discovered that the terrific act of incendiarism 
consisted in the simple burning of some untenanted 
shed or useless roots, effected by the planters' 
emissaries, with the view of fixing the odium of 
the act upon the negro ; or if any damage were 
really done, it could generally be traced to some 
inebriated overseer having allowed his lighted cigar 
to fall among the canes. 

This was perfectly well known upon the spot ; 
but those who had courage to expose the scheme 
were by far too few to withstand the powerful 
majority, whose ends were gained when these 
burnings were trumpeted forth in their newspapers, 
and subsequently re-echoed by their organs in 
England. 

A stranger to West India local politics might, 
with good reason, inquire whether the injury which 
must infallibly accrue to the plantations in the event 
of a rebellion, (to which all these arts would seem 
to propel the negroes,) would not more than coun- 
terbalance any distant advantage which they might 



MOTIVES. S3 

derive from the awakened sympathy or timidity of 
the government in England. 

This forcibly struck me, and it was only by a 
residence upon the spot, and by a careful observation 
of passing circumstances, that I was enabled to 
unravel the secret springs of action. The con- 
trivances resorted to shall be exposed to the gaze 
of my countrymen. 

The colonists were perfectly aware, in the first 
instance, of the innate mildness and submission of 
their unfortunate slaves ; and in the second, that 
government could crush instantaneously the most 
powerful rising among them, should they be goaded 
to that extremity ; while the English public being 
ignorant of these facts, and their newspapers teem- 
ing with descriptions of the insurrection at Barba- 
does, the proclamation of martial law in Trinidad, 
the execution of a band of conspirators in Demerara, 
the consequence would be a large augmentation in 
the price of sugar, and probably a doubt as to the 
expediency of following up a bill which appeared 
fraught with such calamities. There was also 
another important reason for inducing in England 
c3 



84 MOTIVES. 

a belief that the West Indies were on the verge of 
destruction. It was hoped that many absentees, 
owners of large estates, would immediately take 
the alarm ; and fancying beggary before them, 
command their agents to dispose of the same at any 
sacrifice. This was eagerly anticipated by a band 
of harpies upon the spot, and numerous were the 
splendid properties purchased at an almost nominal 
sum. Surely these advantages fully counter- 
balanced the burning of a few plantations, or the 
sacrifice of some dozen useless negro lives. These 
principles will be more clearly developed when I 
proceed to narrate the events which followed the 
1 st of August, the day on which the bill came into 
force ; but as our narrative has not yet reached 
that period by several months, let us turn to the 
consideration of West India society generally, and 
see if the nature of the tree be not in perfect unison 
with that of the fruit. 



THE CHURCH. 35 



CHAPTER III. 

The Church in the West Indies — A Bishop — The Bar — A Judge 
— An Attorney- General — Scene in Court — Stipendiary Magi- 
strates — How selected by Mr. Stanley — Worse than useless — 
Causes. 

Certain rules which hold good in every other 
portion of the civilized globe, are utterly inappli- 
cable to the West Indies. Thus, for example, the 
Church and Bar carrying with them so much 
weight in most communities, find themselves power- 
less here, and that from the extraordinary nature 
of the colonial system, being coerced into siding 
with those whom they cannot but reprobate in 
their hearts, and into abetting measures which, by 
every obligation of religion and rectitude, they 
should unshrinkingly oppose. 

The clergy depend in a great degree for existence 
on the different Houses of Assembly ; their incomes 



can at any moment be reduced or augmented ; let 
them hesitate to acquiesce in any proposition sub- 
mitted by the planters, and they are exposed to 
beggary, to worse than beggary ; since the press, 
controlled by the same planters, will inflict wounds 
upon their reputation which no time can cure. 
It is therefore scarcely to be expected that they 
should encounter the danger which an open sym- 
pathy in favour of the slave would drag upon 
their heads.* 

These remarks will, of course, apply with more 
or less force, according to the character of the 
prelate who may be nominated to preside over the 
Church in this part of the world ; and if govern- 
ment should have the misfortune to make an 
indiscreet selection, the wide-spreading evil is 
shocking to contemplate. The bishop has, at least, 
eight hundred thousand souls under his care. 
What an awful responsibility, and, for a good man, 
what a god-like office ! But if he should be one 

* The Rev. Mr. Harte, a clergyman at Barbadoes, noted for his 
benevolence, after being persecuted in every possible form, for 
endeavouring to instruct the negroes, was finally arraigned on, if I 
remember correctly, a charge of high treason. 



A BISHOP. 37 

with attainments far beneath mediocrity, buoyed 
up with vanity, whose airs of presumption, at once 
overbearing and undignified, render him the object 
of universal ridicule, what moral influence can he 
exert over the community at large ? What benefit 
can his numerous flock derive ? Can any good or 
wise measure be hoped from one whose miserable 
littleness of soul leads him to regard as an object 
of the highest importance, as the pinnacle, indeed, 
of earthly happiness, the being received with the 
roar of cannon at every island he may visit ? 

Imagine the dignified position of a bishop, seated 
in the barge of a man-of-war, reckoning with 
feverish excitement the number of salvoes fired in 
his honour, and then complaining, with childish 
pettishness, that there had been one* discharge 
too few ! 

Do we not almost weep for poor human nature, 
when we hear that a bishop arriving in a port, and 
discovering that it was after the hour when military 
regulations sanctioned the firing of a salute, pre- 
ferred to remain until the following morning on 

* A literal fact. 



38 A BISHOP. 

board, so that then (and that too on the Sabbath) 
his presence might be duly announced by the 
thunder of artillery; interrupting the religious 
ceremonies of the day, assembling together all the 
idle of the station, and needlessly and cruelly 
harassing the troops, who are compelled to march 
several miles under a tropical sun, for the purpose 
of forming a guard of honour ? But do we not 
more than weep, if upon its pleasing Providence to 
inflict an awful hurricane upon a portion of the 
diocese, casting thousands and tens of thousands 
naked and beggars upon the public streets, — do we 
not, I repeat, more than weep, if we find a bishop, 
so far from endeavouring to stay the effects of the 
mighty calamity, increasing them a hundred-fold 
by his insane and dangerous measures ? If ap- 
pointed a distributor of the funds so generously 
accorded by the British public in aid of the suffer- 
ing thousands, does he correctly discharge his 
sacred duty in granting large sums to planters * in 

* A singular reason was advanced by the colonists for aiding the 
planter in preference to the slave, viz. that the latter being the for- 
mer's property, the more he was maimed or reduced by sickness, 
the greater the former's loss, and ergo, that the planter should 



A BISHOP. 39 

absolute affluence, in insisting that other large sums 
should be expended in beautifying his churches, 
or in other words, feeding his vanity, at the very 
moment so many hapless blacks were rotting in the 
highways, without one hand being stretched out 
to relieve their misery, or any prospect of re- 
ceiving one farthing of what the people of England 
chiefly intended for them, the most numerous and 
the most helpless ? And when checked in these 
proceedings by the head of the government, what 
words are sufficiently strong to apply to the man 
who could circulate pamphlets upon the subject, 
thereby compelling the governor to publish a reply 
in the newspapers, to counteract the perilous intent 
of the episcopal attack ? 

"What a spectacle ! What an example to the 
community ! The king's representative and a 
bishop in public collision, and in collision on such 
a subject ! 

With an example like this, little can be ex- 
pected from the inferior clergy, save neglect of 

receive accordingly ! ! Had it not been for the energetic measures 
of Sir Lionel Smith, this abominable doctrine would have been 
carried into effect. 



40 THE BAR. 

their spiritual functions, and indecent interference 
in worldly matters. It is lamentable to observe the 
eagerness with which, in the West Indies, they 
enter the arena of angry discussion, and how con- 
stantly the colonial journals are filled with effusions 
penned by clerical gentlemen, breathing a spirit 
the very reverse of what should be expected from 
teachers of Christianity, while at the same time 
they convey no very elevated idea of the literary 
attainments of West India clergymen. 

I am not desirous of pursuing this subject; the 
reader's own feelings will determine how far in- 
struction to their flocks can be expected from 
characters like these.* 

We will now proceed to take a survey of the 
legal profession in the colonies. Almost every 
island is graced with its first judge, and its second 
judge, its Attorney-General, and its Solicitor- 
General, with barristers and attorneys to repletion. 



* If the reader can obtain a few Demerara papers, it will be 
worth his while to peruse some productions therein, signed " W. W. 
Harman," rector of St. Swithin's parish, in which is comprised that 
portion of district D. from Plantation Best to La Grange, inclu- 
sive. 



THE BAR. 41 

Government have extreme difficulty in inducing 
gentlemen of any talent or reputation at the Eng- 
lish Bar, to accept even the highest professional 
appointments in the West Indies, as, independently 
of the noxious climate, and still more noxious 
society, to which they would he exposed, the 
different salaries have been reduced to so miserable 
a pittance, that the holders, so far from being 
enabled to lay up a trifle for the winter of life, 
would find it barely possible to exist with common 
respectability. Thus the individuals filling impor- 
tant legal offices, are too often personally connected 
with the colonies, by possessing therein sugar 
plantations, which consideration alone has led them 
to take the situations ; or they are of so ruined a 
fortune, perhaps reputation, as to render an absence 
from their country desirable. In either case it 
may be doubted whether they are exactly the cha- 
racters to mete out justice, "without partiality, 
favour, or affection." But the evil stops not here. 
In their train follow a band of satellites, whom it 
would indeed be impossible to paint to the life. 
They resemble that class of persons quaintly 



42 THE BAR. 

designated in England hedge-attorneys; and as 
their briefs come wholly from the planters, who- 
have likewise the power of distributing, what is 
even more esteemed, martial rank,* they are pre- 
pared to find good law for every act of villany and 
oppression. Against these odds, what can avail the 
voice of the poor negro, crying for redress ? 

From these people good breeding or refinement 
cannot be looked for ; rude and boisterous contra- 
dictions must be expected and pardoned ; but 
notwithstanding my being thus prepared, I confess 
I could not witness without amazement the extra- 
ordinary scenes occasionally exhibited in their 
courts of justice — scenes to which, in comparison, 
those at our own Middlesex Sessions, or even those 



* This will be better understood when I speak in a future chapter 

of the West India mania for a gold-laced jacket. Thus Mr. J , 

of the Trinidad Bar, the Sir James Scarlett of the Port of Spain 
Sessions, and indeed a clever enough attorney on the principle that 
" dans le royaume des aveugles un borg?ie est le roi," is in a state of 
misery until he can exchange his wig for a helmet, and his gown 
for a magnificent fancy dress, which he believes an uniform. He is 
then Colonel J , Aide-de-Camp to the Governor, and it is de- 
lightful to observe on those occasions his patronizing air towards 
his Majesty's officers, and his lisping regret that his military rank 
did not permit him to notice, as he should wish, the " subalterns" 
of the army. 



THE BAR. 43 

at the Recorder's Court at Cork, shine resplendent 
with dignity. The lie is frequently given from the 
Bench to the Bar, and of course retorted from the 
Bar to the Bench ; the Secretary for the Colonies 
has frequent appeals from the mutual recriminators, 
and the Governor-General of the islands is occa- 
sionally called upon to suspend a judge.* 

All, therefore, is anarchy, violence, and vul- 
garity, in the higher courts, and increased anar- 
chy, violence, and vulgarity, in the minor. Some- 
times one magistrate orders the constables to 
conduct a brother magistrate to the jail ; while he 
that is thus sentenced seizes the constable by the 
throat, and defies his enemy to fulfil the threat. 
All this in the presence of numerous gangs of 
slaves, whom the party to which these well-con- 
ducted gentlemen belong represent as inaccessible 
to reason, and to whom subordination or obedience 

* " The judges in the "West Indies are totally inefficient to exe- 
cute the great purposes of justice." " Their inefficiency is of a 
twofold nature, viz. they are ignorant of the law, aud are mingled 
up with the local prejudices and feelings of the places in which they 
are called to administer justice." — Lord Glenelg's Speech in the 
House of Lords, March 11, 1836. These pages were written in 
1834. 



44 THE BAR. 

to the laws cannot be taught. The following 
extract from a journal, detailing one of these 
occurrences, will amply corroborate what I have 
advanced : — 

" Mr. Daniel Hart appeared before Dr. Madden 
this day, charging an apprentice with a robbery to 
the amount of five shillings. 

" Dr. Madden. — There is not a shadow of proof 
against the accused, and I shall at once discharge 
him. 

" Mr. Hart. — I am a magistrate, and — 

" Br. Madden. — I cannot permit you, nor any 
one else, to come into my court and attempt to 
browbeat me by violence. You must conduct 
yourself with propriety, or I shall insist on your 
leaving the office. 

" Mr. Hart. — I will not leave the office until I 
please. I am a magistrate as well as you, 
and will remain until I choose to go. 

" Dr. Madden. — You shall not, if you conduct 
yourself improperly. Constables, put Mr. Hart 
out of the office. 

" Mr. Hart (to the constables).— Put me out, if 



A JUDGE. 45 

you dare. Recollect I am one of your employers. 
I am as good as Dr. Madden. 

"Dr. Madden. — Constables, I call upon you, 
and upon all present who are special constables, 
to put Mr. Hart out. 

" The constables stared and stood motionless. 
Dr. Madden called upon Mr. Mitchell, the re- 
porter for the Despatch, and who is a special 
constable, to put Mr. Hart out. Upon Mr. M. 
going up to Mr. Hart, Mr. H. seized him by the 
collar, and gave him in charge to the constables, 
with orders to take him to the cage; and they 
would certainly have done so, had not Dr. Madden 
gone out into the piazza and rescued him ! " 

Before the reader has recovered from his asto- 
nishment at this truly "West Indian forensic scene, 
I will plunge him into still greater by introducing 
to his acquaintance a celebrated judge of one of 
the colonies. 

Through what channel he obtained the appoint- 
ment, I will not stop to inquire ; suffice it to say 
that he was an Irishman, piqued himself upon his 
Hibernian humour and accent, and burned to rival 



46 A JUDGE. 

in facetiousness the renowned Lord Norbury of 
punning fame. This might have been tolerably 
harmless ; but he was at the same time one of the 
most dissolute characters in existence : living pub- 
licly with a harlot ; drunk at all periods ; night 
after night found insensible from liquor in the 
public streets; and in the morning bearing even 
on the judgment-seat the marks of recent and 
beastly debauchery. Can the mind of man ima- 
gine a more degrading spectacle than that of such a 
person pronouncing the stern sentence of the law ? 

One anecdote of his judicial conduct in court 
will be sufficient. 

A respectable individual appeared before him, 
to give evidence in an important suit. He was 
unfortunately severely crippled and maimed from 
wounds received, as I was told, in the service of 
his country. What an excellent subject for the 
judge's ribaldry — for the judge's wit ! 

After mimicking and confusing the poor man 
for a length of time, he gravely inquired his name. 

" Parrymore, my lord," was the reply. 

" A pretty fellow, by Jasus, to be a paramour," 



AN ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 47 

responded "my lord;" "I would lave my wife 
night and day with you for all the harm you could 
do to her. A paramour, indeed ! and bad luck to 
your sowl." 

This wit was superhuman. The judge brogued 
out a true Milesian shout; the bar shook with 
ecstasy; the spectators left in disgust; and the 
poor victim of this heartless buffoonery was car- 
ried out of court in a fit. Et ainsifinit la seance. % 

I will now sketch another functionary of the 
law, who is so truly West Indian, that from him 
the reader may form a correct estimate as to the 
habits of the Windward and Leeward high legal 
officers in general. He was first brought into notice 
by the performance of an act of benevolence towards 
a young gentleman, who had been so indiscreet 
as to affix an erroneous signature to a pecuniary 



* For the credit of the colony to which I allude, I must not 
neglect to mention that this gentleman's habits and conduct were 
subsequently made a subject of investigation by the House of 
Assembly, which passed a resolution depriving him of his office, 
or, what was the same thing, stopping his salary, which compelled 
him to take himself from the island. But still the administra- 
tion of justice must be in a low state, when such a scene as that 
described could by possibility occur. 



48 AN ATTORNEY-GENERAL. 

document, and for which, (the law regarding it in 
a harsher point of view,) it was by no means 
unlikely he would depart somewhat ignominiously 
from this world of sorrows. He, however, had 
the good luck to possess a pretty sister, and this 
sister in her turn an amorous suitor, in the shape 
of a sprig of the law. The price of her hand, for 
I must do our friend the justice to say his views 
were honourable, was the brother's release; but 
the proofs against him were so clear, that the thing 
was considered impossible. 

Our attorney, however, by a series of curious 
manoeuvres, which for obvious reasons I must 
decline particularizing, further than that they were 
not precisely in accordance with the forms practised 
in the law courts of England, not only saved the 
life of the young man, but succeeded in bringing 
about a sentence which I heartily wish could have 
been passed upon me, viz. of banishment from the 
island, with permission to select any other spot on 
the face of the earth for his residence. All eyes 
were now turned upon him, and he was shortly 
afterwards called to the bar amidst the acclama- 



A LAWYER. 49 

tions of the community. Brief followed brief, 
and an incredibly short period saw him his Ma- 
jesty's for the island of . 

How well he deserved this exalted station, how 
justly merit is rewarded in these virtuous colonies, 
will sufficiently appear by a trait I am about to 
narrate, selected from many of a similar na- 
ture. By some means he contracted acquaintance 

with a sergeant of the regiment of foot, who 

had lately married a young woman in a superior 
line of life. She possessed various articles of 
dress no longer adapted to her position when she 
became the wife of a soldier ; and some of these 
were purchased by the lawyer for ten pounds eight 



The sergeant called in a few days for the money, 
but was informed by the legal gentleman that his 
wife had gone on a visit to a neighbouring 
island, and requested that payment might be de- 
ferred until her return, which was at once acceded 
to. Private theatricals were at this time in vogue ; 
the chief performers being the lawyer and the ser- 
geant. At rehearsal one morning, the man of 

D 



50 A LAWYER. 

law exclaimed to him of the halbert, " By the 
bye, I believe your wife possesses two slaves ; take 
care you have them duly registered." The same 
advice was repeated at a second and a third 
rehearsal. 

The lawyer's wife returned ; the sergeant again 
solicited the amount of the debt. " It is but just," 
was the reply; "here is our running account," 
presenting him the following bill : — 

To goods sold Mrs. £10 18 

To three consultations respecting your slaves, at 

one doubloon each 10 8 



Balance due to you ... 10 

which balance he had the assurance to hand over 
to the poor soldier, who quitting the island on the 
following day was prevented from seeking redress. 
This was related as an admirable specimen of 
cleverness ; and without doubt the perpetrator, 
before these pages see the light, will be a judge. 

Far be it from me to insinuate that acts of this 
description are performed and approved by all, with- 
out exception. God forbid ! There are, I rejoice to 
say, some members of the law in the West Indies, 



STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATES. 51 

who would honour any society, and whose legal 
attainments would be distinguished even among 
the distinguished lawyers of England. I need 
only mention Mr. Scotland, the judge of Trinidad. 
But, alas ! men like him are rare ; and the man- 
ner in which he is reviled by the colonists, and 
his plans for the public good rendered abortive, 
while it confirms my assertions, is a proud testi- 
mony of his worth and excellence. 

Although in some degree anticipating more im- 
portant matters, yet as the subject is connected with 
the administration of justice, this will perhaps be an 
eligible opportunity of recording my impressions 
respecting those officers styled stipendiary magi- 
strates, sent out to the colonies on the passing of 
the Abolition Bill. It was the intention of 
government that they should be altogether uncon- 
nected with any party; that they should be the 
impartial mediators between the planter and the 
apprentice, checking oppression on the part of the 
one, and the slightest tendency to insubordination 
on that of the other. 

Nothing could have been wiser in theory than 
d2 



~h% 



STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATES 



this plan ; every friend of humanity rejoiced at it, 
and some even of the planters were compelled to 
admit that, " in these days," it was perhaps advis- 
able that punishment should be inflicted on the 
negro only by the direction of one, who could have 
no personal feelings on the subject. Bitterly do 
I lament to say that in practice the plan entirely 
failed. 

The original selection of gentlemen for the 
office reflects the highest honour on the Colonial 
Secretary. Scorning the idea of deriving from the 
appointments an increase to private patronage, he 
appears to have had no other anxiety than that 
his nominees should be men of integrity, with the 
talents requisite for the office ; and such seem to 
have been the stipendiary magistrates who were 
named in the first instance. They arrived, de- 
termined to fulfil their instructions to the letter ; 
and their having failed in so doing must in no 
shape be attributed to want of zeal or fidelity: 
but the cause must be looked for in those accursed 
local circumstances, which, as the reader must 
have already observed, cast so withering a blight 



WORSE THAN USELESS. 0# 

on all that is good, or honourable, or humane. 
The pitiful amount of the incomes assigned to 
them threw them at once on the mercy of the 
planters. Three hundred a year sounds well ; but 
this sum in the West Indies is barely equal to 
half the same in England. In the performance 
of their duties, the stipendiaries are often under 
the necessity of travelling five and thirty miles in 
one day ; they must, therefore, keep at least two 
horses, with the correspondent number of servants 
at exorbitant wages. After a severe journey of 
this nature in a tropical climate, on roads where 
four miles an hour is rapid travelling, exposed at 
one moment to storms of which nothing in Europe 
can give any conception, and at another to a 
scorching sun which no constitution can long bear 
with impunity, what is to become of them in a 
country where there are no places of public re- 
freshment? They must depend on the charity 
of the planter for even a crust of bread; and 
will this paltry crust, or even a couch on which 
to repose their wearied frames, be granted, if they 
for one moment dare to side against their host ? 



54 STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATES 

"Well do I remember how forcibly many of the 
planters portrayed these facts, previous to the 
arrival of the magistrates ; and vivid is my recol- 
lection of the fiendish rapture with which they 
subsequently declared them at their mercy. Hence 
a large proportion of the individuals first appointed 
have thrown up the offices in disgust ; or retaining 
them, and scorning to fall in with the views of the 
colonists, have been hurried to untimely graves by 
the persecutions which they had to endure. In 
some instances, to render the magistrates entirely 
the servants of the planters, an augmentation to 
the salaries of willing tools has been accorded by 
the local legislature, to be defrayed from the 
colonial revenue. 

This fact speaks for itself; for can this addition 
to the incomes be viewed in any other light than 
that of a bribe ? And how long, I demand, would 
this bribe be continued, if the receiver presumed to 
act in opposition to an influential slave proprietor? 
The planters have numerous methods besides this, 
of compassing their ends ; of thwarting the best 
intentioned and the firmest. If they find him 



WORSE THAN USELESS. 55 

proof against a bribe, callous to physical suffering, 
indifferent to their abuse, determined to hold out 
a protecting hand to the unhappy negro, and 
refusing to lacerate with stripes the body of some 
poor slave, who had perhaps declined to pander to 
his daughter's shame (believe me, reader, this is 
no imaginary case), he is at once branded with the 
epithet of " saint," the most opprobrious which 
the mind of planter can conceive, and sent to 
some distant, unhealthy part of the colony, there 
to rot in disease and despair. 

When they have once killed or driven off 
any whose uprightness and humanity stood in 
their way, the different vacancies are at once filled 
up, pro tempore, by the authorities on the spot. 
The new nominees are strongly recommended to 
the government at home as individuals perfectly 
qualified, "being well acquainted with the negro 
character." The appointments are generally con- 
firmed ; and I undertake to prophesy that long 
before the conclusion of these sketches, the plant- 
ers will have gradually succeeded in obtaining 
magistrates of their own clique, men ready to 



56 STIPENDIARY MAGISTRATES. 

cover with the pretended sanction of the law the 
most cruel, the most vindictive, the most oppres- 
sive of systems. The ink on my paper was scarce 
dry, when I learned with what fearful rapidity my 
prophecy is drawing to its fulfilment.* In defi- 
ance of their instructions, in breach of the pledge 
given by England to the negro, certain magistrates 
have dared to inflict corporal punishment upon 
females ! It is true these females were only eleven 
years of age ; but in these climes this is almost 
the age of puberty. 

One of the magistrates on this occasion frankly 
admitted that he was acting illegally, but affirmed 
that subordination could not be maintained with- 
out the "lash" — a sentiment truly planterian, 
and which secured to the utterer the countenance 
and confidence of every slave proprietor in the 
colony. 

No one will rejoice more than myself if my 
prediction as to what the stipendiary magistrates 



* See, at a subsequent page, an extract from Sir Lionel Smith's 
Letter to the Colonial Secretary, written near two years after these 
memoranda of mine. 



THEIR UNIFORM. 57 

will become should not be realised ; unfortunately, 
however, each day has fortified me more and more 
in the belief of the correctness of my original 
impression. 

Previous to dismissing the subject, I must men- 
tion as a proof of the animus actuating the 
colonists, that they are particularly anxious the 
magistrates should wear military uniform,*" hoping 
thereby to frighten the negroes into a belief that 
they are subject to martial law. Were it not for 
the baseness of the motive, it would be difficult to 
restrain a smile on beholding Justice seated on the 
bench decked in scarlet, and armed with sword 
and spurs. 

Verily, the West Indies is a place for funny as 
well as hideous sights. This the reader will ac- 
knowledge, if he has patience to peruse some of 
the following chapters. 

* A magistrate of Trinidad arrived in a moment of considerable 
excitement. One would have imagined the governor might have 
examined a little into his qualifications, or have given some hints 
for his guidance ; but the first question was, "Well, I hope you 
have a uniform." The reply being fortunately in the affirmative, 
his Excellency was perfectly satisfied with the stipendiary, and had 
nothing more to say. 

d3 



58 QUALIFICATIONS TO ENSURE 



CHAPTER IV. 



Qualifications to ensure entry into the Colonial Beau-monde — 
The different Castes described by a Lady-Patroness — Mulatto — 
Mustie — Fustie — Costie — Sambo — Utter want of Morality in 
both Sexes — Merchants and Store-keepers — Trait of paternal 
and fraternal Affection — A Domestic Tragedy. 



He who is ambitious of entering into what is desig- 
nated good society in the West Indies, must espe- 
cially be prepared to exhibit an undoubted pedigree 
of three generations of white ancestry. No German 
Baron, boasting lineage from Charlemagne, nor 
English Dowager, claiming descent from William 
the Conqueror, can examine with such scrutinizing 
eagerness the quarterings of the suitor for an 
alliance with their houses, as do the colonial 
magnates, the complexion of the candidate for 
their notice. No matter if for two hundred 
years his fathers have regularly suffered for 



GOOD SOCIETY. 59 

forgery and highway robbery, no matter if he 
himself, by a flaw, hath escaped the gallows, for in 
these points the colonists are wondrous liberal; 
provided he can prove his origin from an entirely 
white stock, he is hailed as a welcome addition to 
the fashionable assemblies, received with rapture at 
the levees of Trinidad, and the honour of his attend- 
ance panted for in the ball-rooms of Barbadoes ; 
but woe, woe to the unhappy wretch, if among 
his ancestors can be numbered one in whose veins 
flowed some of the African blood ; never can he hope 
to pass the barrier between him and these illus- 
trious gentry ! Let him be possessed of fortune, 
of polished manners, of spotless reputation ; let him 
have travelled through Europe, have received and 
profited by an enlightened education, all these 
advantages will avail him nothing ; hourly will he 
be taunted with what these European savages 
denominate his negro blood, and for ever will 
society be barred against him.* It is curious to 

* Even as late as 1836, upon a Barbadoes gentleman having 
discovered a coloured, but truly respectable person at the ball 
given by Sir Lionel Smith, he immediately left the room in the 
highest displeasure. 



60 A REQUISITE TALENT. 

observe the rapidity with which a Creole will dis- 
cover shades of complexion, utterly imperceptible 
to the stranger. Indeed, the talent of perceiving 
at a glance how many degrees an individual is 
removed from the negro, is considered of so much 
importance, as to form the primary part of the 
education of the youth of these islands ; without 
it, the young maiden is not deemed fit " to come 
out," as she might, from ignorance, be daily com- 
mitting errors, and perhaps lavishing smiles on 
those whom the laws of this excellent society have 
stamped as infamous. 

A short time after my arrival, I witnessed 
an exemplification of this feeling, in a somewhat 
singular manner ; and for the amusement and edifi- 
cation of the reader I will describe the circum- 
stance in detail. 

One night at a ball, I perceived an extremely 
pretty girl, seated, in a melancholy manner, in a 
corner of the room, the generality of the ladies 
passing her with a sneer, or with averted head. 
She looked so innocent, and, at the same time, so 
unhappy and forlorn, that I sympathized with her 



BALL-ROOM SCENE. 61 

evident suffering, and to remove her embarrass- 
ment, led her to the dance. 

I soon saw that I had committed a solecism 
against fashionable manners. There was such whis- 
pering among the ladies, such flaunting of fans, such 
marked personal rudeness when they came in con- 
tact with me and my partner, that I was beyond 
measure relieved when the set was concluded. I 
was now shunned by the ladies, and pointed at as 
a species of monster. 

Totally at a loss to divine why I was thus cast 
out of the pale of society, I availed myself of 
the favour with which I nattered myself to be 
regarded by a certain " Lady-Patroness" of the 
assembly, and implored from her a solution of the 
mystery. At first she scorned reply ; but moved 
afterwards by my evident contrition and mortifica- 
tion, she at length exclaimed, " What could induce 
you to insult the ladies in such a manner ? what 
put it in your head to dance with a Costie ? " 

I was now more puzzled than ever. I was well 
aware that fine ladies in all coteries have little pet 
words to describe various objects, and that occa- 



62 DIFFERENT CASTES DESCRIBED. 

sionally something very naughty may be wrapped 
up in something apparently very simple ; but this 
appeared to me so far-fetched, that I at once dis- 
played my ignorance, and confessed, with a blush, 
that I had never before heard the term " Costie" 
My peace was made, my fair protectress assured 
the society that I had merely sinned from error, 
and prepared to instruct me in colonial etiquette. 

"You must know, then," she said, (I repeat her 
expressions word for word,) " that there are differ- 
ent castes in the West Indies. For example : 

" A Mulatto is the offspring of a black and 
white. 

" A Mustie is the offspring of a white and a 
mulatto. 

" A Fustie is the offspring of a mustie and a 
white. 

" And a Costie, you wicked man, is the offspring 
of a fustie and a white. You have therefore com- 
mitted a crime to-night almost as heinous as if you 
had selected for a partner a Sambo, which all the 
world knows is the offspring of a mulatto and a 
black." 



STORE-KEEPERS. 63 

Expressing repentance for my fault, and gra- 
titude for the lesson, I took my leave ; and as 
I doubt not the reader is perfectly satisfied with 
this proof of refinement and liberality among the 
Lady-Patronesses of the West Indian Almacks, 
I will proceed to the description of other leaders 
of the society. 

A very exalted station is held by the tradesmen 
of the different islands, or, as I should more pro- 
perly term them, the store-keepers ; for it would 
be an affront of the deepest dye to designate their 
shops by other than the epithet of store. Many 
of these gentlemen possess sugar estates; have 
heavy mortgages on most of the properties ; are 
slave-owners, and consequently, in every sense of 
the word, planters, as well as tradesmen. These 
are indeed men of might ; all the ready money of 
the colonies is in their possession ; and one word 
from them would imprison half the settlements. 
They and their clerks constitute chiefly the ex- 
quisites of the West Indies; for them sigh the 
love-sick Creoles ; for them manoeuvre the match- 
making mammas. They are the stewards of every 



64 STORE-KEEPERS. 

ball ; the setters of every fashion ; " the observed of 
all observers." A stranger unaware of the impor- 
tance of these characters, is not a little surprised 
on entering, for the first time, one of the stores, 
and purchasing an article at a tithe of the sum 
originally demanded, to receive an invitation to 
dinner, in terms protecting and condescending, 
from the not very cleanly, nor particularly honest 
personage behind the counter. Unhappy man, if 
he exhibit astonishment, or fail to acknowledge, 
with gratitude, the attention ! A cartel would be 
the inevitable result ; for these gentry are mighty 
punctilious in points of honour; and notwith- 
standing their surcharges and uncouthness of ap- 
pearance, the shopmen standing behind the counter 
are nobles of the land, perhaps bearing the high 
sounding rank of the Honourable Charles Sugar 
Cane, Member of His Majesty's Council; or 
Lieutenant-General Molasses, Commandant of the 
Royal Plantation Hussars! 

So it is ; in the shops of the West Indies are to 
be found more Honourables than ever attended a 
levee at St. James's; and few garrison towns in 



PRIVATE LIFE. 65 

England could array so many officers as are occa- 
sionally to be seen tippling in the rum-shops of 
Barbadoes and Trinidad. These things, however, 
would, from the man of the world, simply elicit a 
smile, with, perhaps, a passing sensation of regret 
that persons in authority should be found coun- 
tenancing such wretched buffoonery; he would 
scorn to waste a syllable upon it; but when he 
finds that the vanity which prompts the folly, 
likewise induces the actors to thrust themselves 
upon the public as the possessors of every excellent 
quality, as such claiming its sympathy, and creating 
in their favour a powerful party, it behoves him 
to raise loudly his voice in the cause of outraged 
truth. 

I freely admit that I experience some reluct- 
ance in disclosing the arcana of the private life 
of the colonists, and should have paused before I 
removed the veil, had it not been for the effrontery 
with which, by themselves and partisans, their 
praises have been re-echoed to the very skies. 
According to them, vice is only known in the West 
Indies by report ; the ladies are all chaste, and the 



66 WANT OF MORALITY 

men perfect Josephs. Mrs. Carmichael,* in her 
work, entitled " Domestic Manners in the West 
Indies," advances rather a facetious reason for this 
freedom from commission of certain peccadilloes, 
namely, that the construction of the houses is 
such as to render a discovery inevitable. Some 
cynics might be disposed to place no very great 
reliance on that virtue which is only preserved 
by peculiarities of architecture ; but as I am wil- 
ling to attribute this admission to accident on the 
part of the fair authoress, I will not dilate upon 
it ; but when she proceeds to declare that immoral 
habits f are no where to be found among the 
colonists, and that the tone of morals among both 
sexes is much more strict than in what is termed 
genteel society in England, I cannot exhibit the 
same indulgence : and I trust I may, without the 



* Let me be understood as not having the most distant wish of 
speaking disrespectfully of this lady : I comment on her work as 
one emanating entirely from the colonists, and merely ushered into 
the world for peculiar reasons under her name. All my strictures, 
therefore, and accusations of want of veracity, are levelled at the 
authors of " Domestic Manners in the West Indies ;" that work 
being a joint-stock concern of many. 

f Vide page 59, vol. i. of " Domestic Manners." 



IN BOTH SEXES. 67 

charge of indecency, lift up a gauntlet thrown 
down with such arrogance. 

Without longer preamble, I fearlessly assert, 
that this description of the state of morality in 
the West Indies is not only incorrect in every 
point, but that it is almost out of human possi- 
bility that chastity can exist among the female 
population of the whites, owing to the licentious 
examples which are presented to them from their 
very childhood. Now to facts — facts notorious to all 
who have had the misfortune of residing in these 
colonies. Almost every unmarried man on his 
first arrival, whether a stripling from school, or 
one whose appearance and grey hairs denote a 
speedy gathering to his fathers, forms a connexion 
with a negro or coloured girl, who, for the time, 
(for he is constantly changing) bears his name, is 
openly seen at the windows of his residence, and 
resides with him until it suits his views to marry. 
Hence it comes to pass, that scarcely an European 
is without relatives, the offspring of these con- 
nexions. A young lady, on becoming a wife, 
finds herself at once the stepmother of a large 



68 WANT OF MORALITY. 

family of mulattoes ; and a married woman, arriv- 
ing from England unexpectedly, sees her husband 
surrounded by harlots, many of them evincing 
proofs of approaching maternity. The mother is 
introduced in like manner to the prostitute of 
her son, and the sister to that of her brother. Is 
it in the nature of things that the female mind 
can remain long uncontaminated amidst scenes 
like these ? Farther even than this ; so little in 
this corrupted clime is chastity regarded, that 
passing unnoticed the disgusting sharnelessness 
with which adultery is perpetrated and applauded, 
I have known fathers — yes, fathers — compel their 
daughters to associate familiarly with their mis- 
tresses, and allow these strumpets, en famille, to 
claim precedency over their legitimate European 
offspring. I am not harsh enough to deny that 
these unhappy girls may continue virtuous, may 
remain unpolluted in the veriest stews of corrup- 
tion ; still the probability is, I should imagine, 
that mind and body must be irretrievably lost! 
That I may not be considered as drawing on my 
imagination for these frightful pictures, I will ask 



ANECDOTE. 69 

the organ of the colonists, already alluded to, 
whether she can dispute in the minutest points 
these details, and whether she be not acquainted, 
and that intimately, with many to whom my 
remarks will apply ? Knows she any thing of 
the subjects of the following anecdote ? — 

An influential gentleman was in company with 
his son, when intelligence was brought that his 
only daughter, from whom he had been estranged 
for years, had that moment arrived in the harbour. 
One would have imagined that paternal and fra- 
ternal feelings would have carried them on wings 
to the vessel : but no ! — these two amiable rela- 
tives entered into a violent discussion as to which 
belonged the duty of conducting the young lady 
on shore : each apprehending that he who fulfilled 
this task would be considered responsible for the 
passage money. The object of this heartless and 
unnatural altercation was suffered to remain on 
board three days, without one female friend, or 
other associates than the mates of the vessel. 
Shame at length effected what principle could not, 
and the brother condescended to offer an asylum 



TO WANT OF MORALITY. 

to his sister. Eventually, however, he pronounced 
her maintenance too expensive, and compelled the 
father to receive her. This latter was a reckless 
profligate, his house an absolute brothel ; and here 
did a brother permit his innocent sister to seek 
refuge; and here have I seen the unhappy girl, 
the picture of despair, surrounded by the bastards 
and the strumpets of her own parent! Where 
persons thus acting are courted and respected, 
surely one may be permitted to question whether 
that state of society can possibly merit the glowing 
praises lavished upon it by the authors of " Do- 
mestic Manners in the West Indies ;" and if 
those authors still persist in believing their praises 
well founded, I thank my God from the bottom 
of my heart that they and I have studied morality 
in widely different schools. Numerous, I grieve to 
say, are the tales which I could unfold on this par- 
ticular subject; but I really shrink from employing 
all the materials I have at hand, being anxious 
to spare, as much as possible, the feelings of the 
reader. 1 shall therefore limit myself to one 
more anecdote only, which, if I do not greatly 



A DOMESTIC TRAGEDY. 71 

err, will be found to equal in depravity any act 
which the annals of sin record. 

In one of the islands resided a family, consisting 
of a father, daughter, and son, possessed of 
wealth, and holding a leading position in society. 
On a sudden, reports of a dreadful nature were 
circulated on the subject of the father and daugh- 
ter. These were not, however, sifted, and she 
eventually became the unwedded mother of an 
infant, whose fate is yet involved in mystery. 

One would have imagined vice could scarcely 
have been carried farther, but subsequent occur- 
rences were destined to prove that the family as 
yet were in the very infancy of crime. The se- 
cond lover of the lady was her brother;* the result 
a second infant, which, falling accidentally 
from the nurse's arms, was drowned in a neigh- 
bouring stream. The father, burning with jea- 
lousy and rancour at having been supplanted, 
watched eagerly the future proceedings ; and birth 
being given to a third child, and a third murder 

* I regret that the name has escaped my memory. 



72 WANT OF MORALITY. 

committed, he at once published the deed, and 
charged it upon his rival son. The accused ad- 
dressed the judge, soliciting an immediate inves- 
tigation, and stating that his friends (for the 
monster was possessed of friends, and without 
doubt of congenial souls) had counselled him to 
escape, but that he had refused to declare himself 
by such a step guilty of the heinousness imputed 
to him, and that he anxiously prayed to be placed 
upon his trial. The proper officers hastened to 
his residence, but he had effected his flight to the 
Spanish main, leaving his sister to the consolations 
of their virtuous father. If any thing could ag- 
gravate this unparalleled case of atrocity, it might 
be found in the fact that this man was at the time 
married to a lovely and accomplished woman, by 
whom he had a family of seven children. As a 
farther proof of the state of morals in this commu- 
nity, this occurrence created but trifling sensation ; 
and although I admit few were shameless enough 
to defend openly the brother's conduct, still all 
loudly exonerated the father from the crime of in- 
cest, insisting that the young lady was not his own 



WANT OF MORALITY. 73 

child, but that of his wife, this latter having car- 
ried on an adulterous intercourse during her ab- 
sence from the colony ! 

Let the reader pronounce whether my strictures 
are too severe on a society where these things are 
regarded as so many indiscretions, and merely 
talked of as the current gossip of the day. 



74 PRIVATE SOCIETY. 



CHAPTER V. 



Private Society continued — Sir Ralph Woodford. — His Efforts to 
introduce Refinement — The Rum Law — Anecdote — Mania 
among the Colonists for Military Rank — The Court at Trinidad 
— The Immaculate Vice- Treasurer. 



It is a relief to the mind to turn from these sick- 
ening details to others of a less gloomy cast. I 
should not have entered upon them so fully had 
I not been, I may say, goaded thereto by the false 
and fulsome statements put forth by the colonists 
and their partisans, as much as by my anxiety 
(I trust laudable) that the British public should 
become really acquainted with the class who have 
drawn so largely upon its sympathy — its gulli- 
bility — and last, though not least, its — purse. 

There is a maxim inculcating the propriety of 
affecting a virtue even if you have it not. Never 



COARSE AND VULGAR. 75 

was precept so scorned as is this by the colonists ; 
they appear literally to glory in their faults, and 
even exhibit a degree of coarseness and vulgarity 
which I have sometimes had difficulty in believing 
altogether natural. The chief topics of conver- 
sation among them are abuse of the negroes, and 
of all who may be supposed friendly to that in- 
jured race, — speculations as to the price of rum 
and sugar, and the state of the market in England. 
If they wish to relax a little from matters of trade, 
their discourse runs upon their filthy amours 
with slave girls, loudly boasting of the great 
addition their own intrigues have made to the 
" gang !" No attempt at refinement, no respect 
for the presence of females, is manifested ; all is 
low and profligate. Many of the governors have 
endeavoured, as a step towards the reformation 
of morals, to introduce some little appearance of 
decency and courtesy, justly arguing that when 
the masters were sunk into a state so truly de- 
graded, it would be dangerous to endeavour to 
ameliorate the condition of the slaves, as education 
would enable these latter to perceive more clearly 
e 2 



76 SIR RALPH WOODFORD. 

the worthlessness of their oppressors, and might 
perhaps lead them to an effort to free themselves by 
violence. There was one governor, who, if mortal 
man could have succeeded in the righteous object of 
bringing virtue into the haunts of vice — of cementing 
bonds of kindness between the slave-proprietor and 
the slave — of teaching them that their mutual hap- 
piness would be increased by mutual conciliation 
and forbearance, — if mortal man could have suc- 
ceeded in this, it was the late Sir Ralph Woodford. 
Talented, firm, dignified, and polished ; magni- 
ficent in his habits, of private character most pure; 
all the energies of his powerful mind were di- 
rected to the welfare of the important colony over 
which he was called to preside. He felt, justly, 
that a change there would have a correspondent 
effect on the remainder of the West Indies : 
nothing therefore was left untried by him to alter 
the entire tone and system of society, in his go- 
vernment. Precept, entreaty, example, were all 
employed : whether in the end he would have 
been able to accomplish his benevolent views, 
had it not pleased Providence to call him in the 



EFFORTS TO INTRODUCE REFINEMENT. it 

prime of life to " another and a better world," 
must remain for ever a secret : still much was 
effected by him. He proceeded gradually in the 
cause of reform, respected existing prejudices, 
and almost taught the planters that a system of 
humanity was likewise one of sound policy. 
Would that the lesson had been thoroughly 
learned ! 

It is not my intention to enlarge on Sir Ralph 
Woodford's official proceedings, but I cannot 
refrain from relating one of his methods to dimi- 
nish the coarseness existing in private society. 
He at once, on his arrival, objected to the abomi- 
nable fashion, so prevalent at the time, of rum- 
drinking; at every party, declaring that that liquor 
should not be produced at the Government House, 
and that he must decline frequenting any society 
where it was sanctioned. This may appear a 
trifle to many, but those who know " what great 
events from trifling causes spring," or have the 
remotest conception of the degrading scenes daily 
witnessed in the West Indies from the practice 
of dram-drinking, will easily recognise the im- 



78 SIR RALPH WOODFORD. 

portance of this first step in the road to refine- 
ment. When this determination was made known, 
it created in the colony a sensation equal to that 
first elicited in Paris by the celebrated ordinances 
of Polignac ! — such meetings '.—-such caballing ! — 
such threats of appealing to His Majesty in Coun- 
cil ! The governor however was firm, and the 
poor injured people were compelled to remain 
satisfied with the best wines of Europe, and for a 
time to refrain from their beloved grog. 

The seriousness attached to this subject by the 
colonists, and the vindictive feeling produced, will 
be perfectly portrayed in the anecdote which 
follows. 

An individual of considerable weight and conse- 
quence in the society of the colony was deputed to 
communicate with the governor upon the affair, and 
to point out to his excellency the sentiments of 
the community respecting the " rum law." He 
selected the hour of dinner for beginning the 
attack. Vociferating loudly to a servant, he di- 
rected that a goblet of the precious beverage 
should be brought. 



ANECDOTE. 79 

"There is none, Sir, in the house," was the 
reply. 

The delegate then bawled out from one end of 
the table to the other, " Sir Ralph, I say, Sir 
Ralph ; why this black scoundrel behind my chair 
declares that there is no rum to be had here. This 
will never do, Sir Ralph ; the good stuff must be 
encouraged, or what will become of us poor plant- 
ers ?" How the guests chuckled : what a famous 
hit at the governor. 

Sir Ralph, in his calm, dignified manner, an- 
swered, "When next, Sir, you honour me with 
your company, be assured you shall have no cause 
of complaint." Could a sentence of banishment 
from his society be more courteously or more 
severely conveyed ? The rebuke was not for- 
gotten : it long rankled in the worthless heart of 
him to whom it was addressed. And when the 
hand of death had laid the noble Woodford low, 
and his mortal remains were to be carried to Eng- 
land in spirits — at this moment, when one would 
have imagined all animosity even for injuries laid 
aside, and that the bitterest enemy during his life- 



80 MANIA FOR MILITARY RANK. 

time might have shed tears over the untimely end 
of one so talented, so virtuous, and so generous, 
the reptile alluded to, with a fiendish laugh which 
set the table in a roar, exclaimed with impreca- 
tions which I dare not repeat, " How just a retri- 
bution, that he who abhorred the very smell of 
that liquor, should now go to hell in a puncheon 
of rum !" 

I will not, by any comment of my own, weaken 
the horror which must attach to this impious 
ribald and his applauding listeners. 



Notwithstanding this coarseness of manners 
among the colonists, they pant with extraordinary 
anxiety for the distinction of military rank, and 
the privilege of exhibiting a tinselled jacket. 
They have, therefore, formed a large force ot 
militia, with an enormous list of colonels and 
generals. They seize every opportunity of ap- 
pearing in costume ; and to see them caparisoned 
in comical fancy trappings, smelling of treacle and 
stinking of rum, ushered into an apartment with 



COURT DAY AT TRINIDAD. 81 

pomp, and responding to brilliant titles, beggars 
any caricature ever produced by the inimitable 
Cruikshank. 

Hearing one day at Trinidad, that a levee was 
to be held, and never having been presented, I 
made up my mind to attend it. On the morning 
fixed for the ceremony, a constant discharge of ord- 
nance was kept up from gun-fire until twelve 
o'clock ; a line of soldiers was formed in every 
street, and a guard of honour over each store 
which had the good fortune of calling a militia- 
chief, master. Making my way with some diffi- 
culty through formidable bands, and hearing many 
witty remarks as to how much finer their uniforms 
were than those of the king's troops, I at length 
succeeded in reaching the government house. 
Being rather before the time, I amused my- 
self by surveying the scene. The first conspicuous 
object was a pasteboard figure of a man, the size 
of life, pierced with innumerable bullet holes. 
This, I believe, was intended as an illustration of 
the perfection to which the colonists had arrived 
in pistol-shooting, at which they daily practise 
e3 



82 A TUMULTUOUS SCENE. 

with the view of becoming proficients in the noble 
science of duelling ; or it might have been a hint 
as to what a satirist of their proceedings might 
expect. In different parts of the chamber stood 
huge tables, covered with tumblers and cases con- 
taining brandy, rum, and shrub. While I was 
puzzling my imagination as to what could be the 
appearance of people, whose throats were capable 
in this scorching clime of swallowing such fiery 
ingredients, the folding doors were thrown open, 
and in rushed tumultuously, not exactly a herd of 
swine, but something not unlike — the magnates 
of the island! — generals, colonels, majors, hus- 
sars, lancers and dragoons, artillery and infantry, 
with a staff that defies enumeration. 

Never, never can be erased from my memory 
the first impression made by the motley gang. 
At the impulse of the moment I started back with 
alarm, apprehending that I had fallen among 
maniacs, or, at all events, a crew of inebriated 
masqueraders : being, however, seriously assured 
that they were officers, I screwed my muscles 
into rigidity, and prepared to mark the result. 



MILITARY UNIFORMS. 83 

They were arrayed in uniforms, of which it was 
impossible to say which was most fantastic : the 
strolling players of the colony might well be sus- 
pected of having let out their theatrical wardrobes 
for the occasion. 

There were guerilla dresses, Hungarian pelisses, 
and improved (according to the wearers' taste) 
British uniforms. Grey-headed old men were 
habited as dashing lancers, and boys of sixteen ap- 
peared in the garb of generals. The chief* barris- 
ter of the settlement, in person the very counterpart 
of the lowest description of bum-bailiff, with fat, 
unmeaning countenance and bloated features, wore 
a sort of golden armour, with an aiguillette and 
epaulette of enormous dimensions on each shoul- 
der ; while on his breast glittered a bauble meant 
to represent the star of the Order of the Garter. 
His clerk followed him at an humble distance as 
squire, or aide-de-camp, modestly caparisoned as a 



* I have unconsciously fallen into an error in describing this 
person as the "chief barrister ;" I should have said a leading one^ 
The merit of being the chief is on all sides conceded to Mr. Charles 
Warner, who, being a gentleman by birth, does not mix in these 
upstart follies. 



o4< THIRST FOR SPIRITUOUS LIQUORS. 

colonel of hussars. There was a linen-draper as 
quarter-master-general, and an auctioneer as ad- 
jutant-general. Six store-keepers, or rum-sellers, 
appeared as Brigadiers, attended by a suite of 
'prentice boys, dressed as King's aides-de-camp. 
The exact nature of the remaining uniforms I 
could not define, so plastered were they with gold 
and silver. I shall therefore merely observe that 
they were all equally magnificent, and the wearers 
thereof of rank equally illustrious. During some 
time, they in solemn majesty paced the apartment, 
jingling their spurs in a manner truly warlike, 
and striking with awe and envy us poor soldiers of 
His Majesty's line. At length, " impatient for 
the fray," they commenced an attack on the deli- 
cate refreshments, with which I have described the 
tables to be garnished. Demi-jean* after demi- 
jean vanished before these heroes. I had before 
heard of fire-eaters, but never until this moment 
could I have believed it possible for mortal man to 
swallow the liquid fire, quaffed with such eager- 
ness by these generals and colonels. And now 

* A bottle containing about four gallons and a half. 



MILITARY EXPLOITS. 85 

voices were given to them ; they talked, " Heavens, 
how they talked 1" They had lately, be it under- 
stood, been employed in the field of Mars, for 
which they shall receive due honour in a future 
chapter. By their account, the army in the Pen- 
insula underwent less hardships than those en- 
countered by them in the marshes of Naparima ; 
and the troops under Sir John Moore retreated 
with less order at Corunna, before the French, 
than did they before a concourse of old women and 
children at Cocorite. And they contradicted each 
other : one general swore, by his puncheons, that 
his division had done the work, while another, in 
frantic language, claimed the palm for his. The 
chiefs were joined in the discussion by their 
respective staffs, and assuredly there was less 
confusion of tongues at the tower of Babel. Angry 
scowls overshadowed the countenances of all parties, 
and I every moment expected to witness a sangui- 
nary combat, when fortunately the door of the 
presence-chamber was unclosed, and in reeled 
these worthies to offer their homage to that digni- 
fied representative of Majesty, better known by 



86 THE IMMACULATE VICE-TREASURER. 

the honourable appellation of the " Immaculate 
Vice-Treasurer." 

After the levee, with the hope of burying all 
angry feelings, the militia officers adjourned to a 
tavern, where a collation was prepared, at which 
presided the " Immaculate Vice-Treasurer ;" enli- 
vening the scene by the exhibition of several acts of 
tomfoolery, and aiding in keeping up the disgusting 
revel by the spouting of his usual maudling ora- 
tions. Here swords were actually unsheathed by 
the warriors, and nothing but the magic word 
Arrest, could have prevented their blades from 
being stained with blood. Peace being how- 
ever once more restored, the officers remained at 
table until night-fall, when they quitted for the 
theatre, where was to be a performance, as the 
play-bills had it, " Under the immediate patronage 
of The Militia, who would on the occasion appear 
in full uniform." They were, of course, headed 
by the same " Immaculate Vice-Treasurer," under 
whose eye again occurred scenes, which I will not 
sully the paper by recording. It is enough to tell, 
that after noise, oaths, and blows among the men, 



SIR GEORGE HILL. 87 

shrieks and fainting among the women, many- 
members of the party hurried to the neighbouring 
fields with pistols, and the miserable farce was 
terminated by more than one fearful tragedy. 

So much for court life in the West Indies ; and 
so much for the representation of Majesty in the 
Island of Trinidad.* 



* I may appear to have reflected with harshness on the Right 
Honourable Sir George Hill ; but when I proceed to describe 
him a little more minutely, even his friends will acknowledge that 
as yet I have indeed been gentle. 



88 DIGRESSION. 



CHAPTER VI. 



Digression — Sir George Hill, Governor of Trinidad — Debate in 
Parliament — Mr. O'Connell's Opinion of Sir G. Hill— Mr. 
Spring Rice's— Mr. R. Gordon's — Mr. Hume's— Mr. G. R. Daw- 
son's — Sir J. Newport's — Mr. Wilks's — Alderman Waithman's 
— Mr. Strickland's — Mr. D. W. Harvey's — Public Opinion as 
expressed through the Press. 



Having, under the title by which he is familiarly 
known in the West Indies, referred so strongly 
to the Governor of Trinidad, I must interrupt 
the regular course of my sketches for the purpose 
of presenting a more minute delineation of Sir 
George Hill. 

Every government in the colonies is a little 
despotism ; consequently, on the personal cha- 
racter of the despot for the time being, the welfare 



SIR GEORGE HILL. 89 

of thousands depends ; and frightful is the moral 
condition of that community where a person 
might "justify his delinquency by referring to 
the case of his judge."* 

An individual opinion can carry but little 
weight, but some I trust will attach to the calmly 
expressed and well-weighed opinions of numerous 
representatives of the people in parliament, — 
opinions uttered in the face of day, and in the 
British House of Commons, — in the presence of 
the faction of which Sir George Hill had long 
been a prominent member, and in that of many 
of his relatives and personal friends, not one of 
whom dared to utter a syllable in his defence 
or favour. 

For the proper understanding of the subject, 
it is necessary the reader should bear in mind, 
that at the period of the following debate in 
parliament, the Tories were no longer in office ; 
and that the debate sprang out of a motion on 

* Vide Mr. O'ConnelPs Speech. Strange enough, a similar case 
has lately occurred in Trinidad, the Treasurer having become a 
public defaulter. 



90 SIR GEORGE HILL. 

the subject of a grant of money to the Vice- 
Treasurer's department in Ireland. 

Mr. O'Connell said — " On a former occasion, 
the honourable member for Cricklade called the 
attention of government to the serious defalcation 
which had taken place in the Vice-Treasurer's 
office of Ireland on the part of a former Vice- 
Treasurer, who had been since promoted to a 
colonial government: he wished to know what 
steps had been taken upon the subject ?" 

Mr. Spring Rice replied — that urgent and 
repeated calls had been made upon Sir George 
Hill to render his accounts, but that he had neg- 
lected to do so, alleging that a difficulty arose 
from a part of his papers being in England, and 
a part in Ireland, and making various other ex- 
cuses. At length Sir George Hill was appointed 
Governor of St. Vincent's, in the West Indies ; 
and he left this country without rendering any 
account whatever of the public money entrusted 
to his care. In consequence of further appli- 
cations, Sir George at last rendered in his ac- 
counts, but they were unsupported by vouchers, 



DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT. 91 

and were altogether in a condition which made 
it impossible that they could be audited, exa- 
mined, or passed. Assuming, however, that the 
accounts were correct, it appeared by Sir George 
Hill's own showing that he was in debt to the 
public. He had been called upon to pay the 
money, and put his accounts in a state so that it 
might be ascertained whether he was not indebted 
in a larger amount. Neither of these requisitions 
had been complied with, but he had written to 
the Treasury Board to say that his nephew, Mr. 
Hill, who was in Ireland, would pay the balance 
for him. Application had consequently been 
made to this Mr. Hill, and the only result was, 
that that gentleman had declared his willingness 
to pay the money when Sir George Hill directed 
him to do so. This, he supposed, Sir George 
had not done, for the money was still unpaid. 

Mr. R. Gordon thought the late administration 
very reprehensible throughout the whole trans- 
action : Sir George Hill ought not to have been 
appointed to so responsible and important an 
office as governor and chancellor of a colony. He 



92 SIR GEORGE HILL. 

ought not to have been permitted to sail until he 
had paid the money which, by his own showing 
and acknowledgment, was due. The Treasury 
had been extremely remiss in their duty. 

Mr. Hume conceived the Treasury had been 
extremely culpable in not settling Sir George 
Hill's accounts; and he took the case only as 
one example casually discovered in which the 
Treasury neglected their duty, and disregarded 
the public interests. Nothing could be more im- 
proper than to place a person, under Sir George 
Hill's circumstances, within the temptations of 
such appointments as those of governor and 
chancellor of a West India island. 

Mr. G. R. Dawson would allow that the ac- 
counts of Sir George Hill had been a very long 
time settling. As Secretary of the Treasury he 
had been placed in a very delicate situation, in 
having to call a relative to account, but he had 
done every thing in his power to bring Sir George 
Hill to a settlement, and he failed in doing it, 
though he was eternally trying to do it. (The 
honourable member was here received with some 



DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT. 93 

laughter.) Nobody had a right to cast aspersions 
on the character of Sir George Hill until his 
accounts were settled. He would undertake to 
say, the public would not eventually lose a 
shilling. 

Mr. Gordon denied the doctrine of the member 
for Harwich, that no person had a right to employ 
the term "defaulter" in such a case. Fifty 
thousand pounds of the public money had been 
paid by the Treasury to this person/ whilst he 
was refusing to render any account, and setting 
the Treasury at defiance : and even when he 
would not refund what he acknowledged to be due, 
the late ministers appointed him to a high and 
responsible situation in the colonies, and per- 
mitted him to depart with the public money in 
his pocket. He was convinced that every man 
would feel that the late administration was much 
in fault, and that the Treasury had neglected its 
duty. 

Sir J. Newport said, that if the honourable 
member (Mr. Dawson) were correct in his notion, 
that no man had a right to cast aspersions on Sir 



94 SIR GEORGE HILL. 

George Hill until his accounts were settled, then 
Sir George was pretty sure of not being aspersed ; 
for according to the conduct he had hitherto pur- 
sued, his accounts would remain unsettled for 
an undefinable period. He reprobated the con- 
duct of the Treasury in issuing public money to 
a person who refused to obey all commands to 
account for what he had received. He likewise 
strongly remonstrated against the doctrine that 
the merits of such a case had any relation to the 
chances which the public might eventually run of 
losing, or not losing the money. 

Mr. Spring Rice declared, that the Treasury 
had displaced an officer in Trinidad for similar 
conduct, although the public had suffered no 
loss. 

Mr. O'Connell deprecated the conduct of the 
late Secretary to the Treasury, who was writing 
pressing letters to his relation, but never thought 
of stopping the issue of the money. Who could 
tell what further nest-eggs of the sort were yet 
undiscovered I A person guilty of such conduct 
ought never to have been placed at the head of 



DEBATE IN PARLIAMENT. 95 

an Equity Court, where a person might justify 
his delinquency by referring to the case of the 
judge. 

Mr. Wilks thought Sir George Hill had dis- 
qualified himself for his situation, and he trusted 
that the present government would do its duty 
better than its predecessors. 

Mr. G. R. Dawson defended the department, 
and could not but blame Sir G. Hill. 

Mr. Hume deprecated the doctrine, that men 
might receive and use the public money with 
impunity, because their friends would assert, in 
the House of Commons, that the public would 
not ultimately lose by such conduct. The whole 
case of Sir George Hill was one of embezzle- 
ment in the very strongest sense of the word. 

Mr. O'Connell insisted that Sir George Hill had 
no right whatever to touch the money in which he 
was deficient, and if it were not immediately paid, 
he should certainly move an address to the king 
for Sir George Hill's removal. 

Mr. Alderman Waithman reprehended the pro- 
motion of a public defaulter to another appoint- 



96 SIR GEORGE HILL. 

ment, in order to enable him to pay back the 
money which he had embezzled. 

Mr. Strickland maintained that the conduct of 
Sir George Hill was nothing short of actual em- 
bezzlement. 

Mr. Hume proceeded to enforce the charge at 
some length, alleging that he was perfectly justified 
in looking upon the offence of which Sir George 
Hill appeared to have been guilty, as a direct case 
of embezzlement and malversation. 

Mr. D. W. Harvey animadverted in strong terms 
on the conduct of Sir George Hill. The parties 
who were every day mentioned in police reports as 
sent to trial for embezzlement, were infinitely more 
excusable than a public man of high political con- 
nexions. Any rogue who happened to be detected, 
would be willing to make a compromise afterwards. 

Such were the opinions of the public, as ex- 
pressed by their representatives in Parliament ; 
let us now see how far these opinions were shared 
in by the press of the day. 

The most influential organ thus records its 
sentiments : — 



OPINIONS OF THE PRESS. 97 

" The case of Sir George Hill came before the 
House of Commons last night. 

" This is a most discreditable transaction to the 
late government. Here was a public defaulter, 
who had been, by the statement of his own relative, 
applied to frequently and fruitlessly for money 
which was due to the public service from him, the 
head of the whole treasury department of Ireland ; 
and yet the ministers of the day appointed the 
same defaulter to the government of a West India 
colony, where he would have, and has actually, to 
perform the financial and judicial functions of 
Chancellor, as well as that of Representative of the 
Crown. We observe that neither Sir Robert Peel, 
Mr. Dawson's brother-in-law, nor Mr. Goulbourn, 
late member for Armagh, ventured to say one 
word in favour of the appointment. 

" But it is obvious to the world, that either Sir 
George Hill must instantly be recalled, or the pre- 
sent ministers become accessories to the culpable 
conduct of those who went before them, and every 
man of yet unblemished reputation, holding a 
government under the Crown of England, will, if 



98 SIR GEORGE HILL. 

he respects himself, feel it necessary to resign his 
office." 

Again, we find the subject reverted to in these 
terms : — 

" We insert the letter of an indignant subaltern 
in office on the conduct of the late Vice-Treasurer 
for Ireland, Sir George Hill, and the attempts 
which are made to cloak his peculation. If Mr. 
Dawson will undertake, that ultimately the people 
shall not lose the money, why has he not advanced 
already the money for his relative, and trusted to 
his own importunity to procure repayment to him- 
self, rather than thus suffer the country to be the 
loser ? Of course when Mr. Dawson pledges him- 
self for repayment, he means that of interest as 
well as principal. 

" But what we complain of chiefly is, that this Sir 
George Hill should have been suffered to go out 
to so important a situation as that of Governor of 
a West India Island. Every servant of His 
Majesty, who knew of this defalcation at the 
time of the appointment, betrayed his trust ; and 
if he were a Privy Counsellor, we should con- 



LETTER OF A SUBALTERN. 99 

ceive even neglected to pay due observance to his 
oath. 

" Mr. Dawson says now, that whilst Secretary to 
the Treasury, he had been continually badgering 
Hill to settle his account, but in vain. Did Mr. 
Dawson state that fact to the head of the Govern- 
ment, when he heard of the new and more im- 
portant appointment?" 

The following is the substance of the letter 
which called forth the preceding article : — 

" If any thing were wanting to show the neces- 
sity of reform, and consequent rigid control over 
those to whom the public money is entrusted, the 
disgraceful disclosure in the House of Commons 
respecting the conduct of a late Vice-Treasurer in 
Ireland, must convince all but those who in high 
situations fatten on the vitals of the people. To 
the indignant feelings which such an exposure en- 
genders, succeed those of contempt for the lame 
efforts of certain persons connected with the de- 
faulter in question, to soften down acts of flagrant 
delinquency and embezzlement into ' confused 

state of accounts,' 'balance owing,' &c. &c. 
L.ofC. 

F 2 



100 SIR GEORGE HILL. 

" Had any unfortunate subaltern in the Treasury 
been similarly * confused/ ay, even had his con- 
fusion only amounted to fifty pounds, disgrace and 
immediate loss of his situation would have been the 
consequence. He would be sent to a colony, 
but it would be such a one as would hand his 
name down to infamy. Is it not shameful injus- 
tice, then, that in the case of a great man, and for 
a great sum, embezzlement should be smoothed 
into l confusion of his accounts,' and fraud into 
i deficiency pro tern.'' " 

Can a colony thrive under such a ruler ? Is 
such a ruler a fit representative for the Majesty of 
Great Britain ? 

These questions I hope yet to hear answered in 
the Senate of my country. 



PUBLIC FUNCTIONARIES. 101 






CHAPTER VII. 



Class from which the Public Functionaries are selected — The Prin- 
ciples of these — The Duke of Wellington's Friend M'Sawnie — 
An Overseer — A Manager — A Planter — The Climax. 



I have already observed, in a cursory way, that 
rank and power in the West Indies are only to be 
acquired in proportion to the candidate's possession 
of, or influence over, sugar plantations. There 
are few bona fide proprietors resident on the spot ; 
the greater part of the estates are mortgaged to 
nearly their full value, and are superintended by 
some of the mortgagees, or their agents. 

These people have no idea beyond grinding out 
of the property the largest possible sum in the 
shortest possible period, perfectly indifferent to 
the eventual ruin they must entail by the over- 



102 PUBLIC FUNCTIONARIES. 

working of the soil, and having no sympathy for 
the slaves, whom they literally regard as cattle: 
they think alone of the present gain to themselves. 
From this sordid and heartless race are selected 
the generality of the public functionaries, such 
as Members of Council, Representatives in the 
Houses of Assembly, Officers of Militia, Com- 
mandants and Justices of districts. They are a 
formidable band, firmly united against the advo- 
cates for the abolition of slavery. They are 
especially careful to fill every department over 
which they possess power, with relatives or follow- 
ers of their own way of thinking, by which means 
they have long rendered it extremely difficult for 
the Home Government to legislate with effect in 
behalf of the slave, in opposition to the powerful 
body by whom that slave is not only regarded as 
property, but over whose life they almost demand 
control. 

It may not be uninstructive to learn something 
respecting the origin of these colonial law-makers, 
who, in their humane and enlightened circle, when 
discoursing on the advantages of slavery, and 



AN ITINERANT MOUNTEBANK. 103 

glowingly describing that blessed condition as far 
preferable to that of the labouring peasantry in 
England,* find themselves at each pause greeted 
with shouts of approval, and held up as gifted with 
more than Ciceronian eloquence and more than the 
philanthropy of a Howard ; nor will it prove less 
edifying to the stranger to have pointed out to 
him the first steps of the magical path leading to 
such magnificent ends, transforming sugar-boilers 
and rum-distillers into senators, and conveying a 
general's sword into the hand yet hot from scourg- 
ing a negro's back. 

* An itinerant mountebank from Scotland, literally made a tour 
in the West Indies, where public dinners were given to him, when 
he descanted in the above feeling and sensible strain. 

On one occasion he proposed the health of " his friend the Duke 
of Wellington, who would soon be in, and see justice done to the 
planters," &c. 

Perceiving that a military gentleman present (and than whom does 
not breathe a more loyal one) had not joined in the hallooing, and 
now left his wine untasted, he peremptorily demanded the cause. " I 
would willingly drink his Grace's health, as I venerate him ; but I 
will not toast him as your friend, doubting whether you have even 
ever spoken to him : at all events, I am assured he would scorn the 
principles which you are striving by inference to affiliate upon him." 

"Turn him out," was loudly vociferated, " he will not drink to 
M'Sawnie's friend." The gentleman quietly retired. I only 
wonder how he found himself among such rabble, and how he was 
permitted to escape with life. 



104 AN OVERSEER. 

A young man from the dregs of the populace, 
forced by poverty or by crime to abandon his own 
country, works his passage to the West Indies. 

Having, by his conduct on board, given satis- 
faction to the master of the vessel, he is by him 
recommended to some partner of the firm with 
which he trades. This latter engages him as a 
servant to look after horses and mules, and fixes 
him on a sugar estate. After serving for some 
time in this capacity, and having had the tact to 
evince hatred of every thing " nigger," and to be 
constantly complaining of the idleness and obsti- 
nacy of those " damned black fellows" he is con- 
sidered eligible for a more elevated post. Armed 
with a whip, he is placed in charge of a section of 
slaves, whose work he is to superintend from 
morning till night, and is dignified with the appel- 
lation of Overseer. 

Springing from the class which we have men- 
tioned, entrusted for the first time with authority, 
and authority, too, of no trifling description, 
utterly ignorant of, and despising the nature and 
dialect of the unhappy beings doomed to his care, 



CRUEL TREATMENT OF SLAVES. 105 

firmly believing that the negro is far removed 
from the pale of humanity, he is hurried into acts 
of cruelty, (his weapon and badge of office, the 
aforesaid whip, being always at hand,) of which it 
needs no great power of imagination to form an 
idea, as well as of the rapidity with which, at this 
employment, a naturally rugged and unfeeling 
disposition becomes thoroughly and irrevocably 
brutalized. 

We will suppose him to have held this appoint- 
ment some years, and to have fulfilled its duties 
with firmness and zeal, that is, lacerating the 
bodies of the gang, to evince the former, and 
proving the latter by robbing them even of sleep,* 
for the purpose of concocting a few extra pun- 
cheons of rum. He is rewarded accordingly, — 
behold him a Manager ! 



* In the year 1827, so enormous a quantity of sugar was made 

in Trinidad, on the estate of a Mr. , (an Honourable, of course, 

and Member of Council,) that a very intelligent calculator demon- 
strated by facts and figures, that to have made this quantity, the 
slaves could not by possibility have enjoyed four hours' rest out of 
the twenty-four, during a period of many, many months ! 

Injured, hapless race ! And these men are to receive com- 
pensation, and yet to retain you six long years in bondage. 



106 A MANAGER. 

His fame has been circulated far and wide. 
The number of hogsheads of sugar fabricated 
on such an estate is the theme of every tongue : 
it becomes an important object to secure his ser- 
vices, and some proprietor, wishing to- return to 
Europe, believes he cannot do better than place 
his estate under the care of so meritorious an indi- 
vidual, not having the remotest conception of the 
means by which this reputation has been acquired ; 
for in justice to the bond fide proprietor, I must 
acknowledge, that I do not think he would know- 
ingly confide his slaves to a cruel and oppressive 
manager ; when on the spot himself, I have gene- 
rally observed him kind, and his people happy 
and contented.* His fault lies in placing so 



* It is truly gratifying to observe the happiness pervading some 
estates on which the proprietors reside. Take for example the 
Hope, in the Island of Tobago, owned by C. F. Franklin, Esq. 
a highly talented and accomplished gentleman of the old school. 
Maugre the forebodings of many of the colonists, no parent could 
have acted more tenderly towards his children than Mr. Franklin 
has towards his slaves, of which, by-the-bye, he has seen four gene- 
rations. 

He is even now rewarded by the improvement of his property, 
which increased, and increasing, will descend to his heirs uncursed 
by a tear or groan. 



DISHONEST PROCEEDINGS. 107 

many fellow-creatures under the control of a 
person, respecting whose moral character he has 
neglected to inquire, and this fault has been 
punished by ruin. 

But to return from this digression : our manager 
now commences business on his own account ; his 
talents rise with his position ; he lays by a small 
sum every year; he employs the slaves of the 
estate for his own private purposes, such as build- 
ing houses, of which he disposes ; or he hires them 
(the slaves) out at so much per head, never giving 
credit to the master for the sums thus gained, nor 
for the labour lost to his immediate property. To 
account for the deficit which soon begins to appear, 
he pens plausible epistles to his defrauded em- 
ployer, declaring that the slaves will not work ; that 
the methodists are ruining them. Not a shadow 
of suspicion is awakened in the mind of the poor 



Long, for the sake of humanity, may this excellent man be 
spared ; but when it does please the Almighty to bring him to that 
dread moment, when all the vanities of this world pass away, he 
will be found tranquil and prepared, solaced by the blessed hope of 
being rendered a participator of that holy abode, promised to the 
just, the humane, and the charitable. 

F 3 



108 A PLANTER. 

absentee ; his friends, whom he consults, are in 
the habit of receiving similar communications from 
their managers, and he tries to remain tranquil, 
convinced he may reckon on the fidelity of him to 
whom his property has been confided. 

Our adventurer, under the semblance of amiable, 
disinterested feelings, now permits his salary to 
remain year after year in his employer's hands; 
" he hopes that better days will arrive, and that he 
may then receive it without putting his patron to 
inconvenience." 

Unforeseen circumstances at length compel him 
to press for it at an " untoward" period, and in 
payment, he consents (still carrying on the farce 
of disinterestedness) to accept a mortgage on the 
property; a second and third mortgage speedily 
follow, and he becomes, to all intents and pur- 
poses, what is implied by the word Planter. 

His mind is now enlarged with a witness, and 
the whilom slave-whipper forms plans to represent 
a district of the colony. Fortune still befriends 
him ; he is elected a Member of the House of 
Assembly, and becomes a popular orator ; and when 



THE CLIMAX. 109 

the proprietor, at length awakened from his fatal 
trance, and whose decline in the world has been 
in exact progression with the other's rise, hastens 
to the West Indies with the hope of retrieving 
some trifle from the wreck of his once noble 
fortune, he finds his quondam mule-keeper, over- 
seer, and manager, a Member of the Colonial 
Council, an Honourable, a Colonel of Militia, 
perhaps the acting Representative of Majesty 
itself, potent enough to treat his victim's menaces 
with scorn, and to get his ill-gotten gains confirmed 
to him by the solemn award of the law, pro- 
nounced by one of his own satellites, whom, for 
the occasion, he has elevated from a grocer's 
counter to the judgment seat. 

These portraits will at once be recognised, 
and many hundreds will claim the honour of 
having specially sat to me ; but as I do not wish 
to create envy by particularizing, I shall leave the 
claimants to arrange the affair among themselves. 



110 SYSTEM OF SLAVERY. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



lance at the former Treatment of Slaves — Maxim of the Planters 
— How acted upon — Anecdote — No Instruction allowed the 
Negroes — An Idiom formed for them — Motives — All Religious 
Ceremonies scorned — A Funeral among the Whites — Error of 
the Anti- Slavery Party — Gratitude owed to the Missionaries 
— Their excellent Doctrines — Mrs. Carmichael's Calumnies — 
Character and Demeanor of the Methodist Preachers. 



Having presented a brief outline of the state of 
private society among the colonists, and thereby 
in some degree prepared the reader for what must 
be expected from such characters, when they come 
to lord it over slaves, I will endeavour to render 
apparent, as far as my feeble powers will admit, 
the abominable nature of the system still pursued 
towards those hapless beings. So much has been 
already written upon this topic, while the state- 



MISREPRESENTATIONS. Ill 

ments have been so opposite, that the difficulty 
and delicacy of the task I have undertaken rise 
before me in full force. By some I shall be 
reviled for betraying too many of the secrets of 
the " prison-house ;" by others, with much greater 
justice, for revealing too few. I scorn, however, 
the idea of attracting attention by highly-coloured 
or exaggerated descriptions, or by the repetition 
of horrors culled from works published for mero 
party purposes; truth alone shall be my guide, 
and I will follow her with calmness, and perfect 
freedom from prejudice. In accordance with this 
principle, I commence with at once admitting, that 
of late years the colonists have been the objects of 
some little misrepresentation, inasmuch as they 
have been charged with acts at which the bucca- 
neers of old would have almost paused. This has 
been unjust, as by comparison with those of former 
days, the colonists of the present are in the high 
road to civilization and humanity. 

The torturing of slaves, (that is, what we un- 
derstand generally by the expression, with the 
rack, thumb-screw, &c.) so familiarly practised in 



112 FORMER TREATMENT OF SLAVES. 

the olden time, has long been discontinued. 
Those numerous instruments for the mutilation 
of the human frame, and without which a planter's 
establishment would formerly have been pro- 
nounced imperfect, are now preserved only as 
objects of curiosity, and not for hourly employ. 
A master can scarcely in these days flog a negro 
to death with the certainty of an instantaneous 
and boiiO arable acquittal by a jury of Englishmen, 
on the ground, that the slave being his property, 
it was not probable he could have intended to im- 
poverish himself, and that the death must in con- 
sequence be viewed as the effect of an accident, 
for which the planter merited pity rather than 
blame ! Advertisements are no longer to be seen 
in the colonial gazettes, or posted on the doors of 
the house of God, offering high rewards to those 
who should bring in, " dead or alive," certain slaves 
who had absconded, so that if alive they might 
be made to expire under excruciating torments* 



* Behold what a French author (Labat, vol. v. p. 44) says of 
the punishment inflicted in the English colonies formerly on slaves: 
— " Ceux qui sont pris sont condamnes a etre passes au moulin, 



; IMPROVED HABITS OF PLANTERS. 113 

as examples to the remainder of the gang ; or if 
dead (surely the inference is not overstrained), the 
masters might yet glut their demon passions by 
the mutilation of the corpses ! These, and thou- 
sands upon thousands of like atrocities, to which 
for so many years the slaves were doomed, and 
which I will not disgust the reader by dwelling 
upon, are now, thanks to the God of mercies, 
known in our colonies only by tradition. 

Cheerfully do I bear this testimony in favour 
of the improved habits of the British planters of 
the nineteenth century, still I must not conceal 
that much remains yet to be accomplished by 
them before they can lay the remotest claim to 
the character of benevolent, merciful, or in fine, 
christian masters. I must even proceed fur- 
ther, and declare, that the system yet pursued by 
them is one at which every man, whose heart is 
not dead to all feeling of religion and humanity, 



brules tout vifs, ou exposes dans des cages de fer qui les serrent, de 
raaniere qu'ils ne peuvent faire aucun mouvement, et en cet etaton 
les attache a une branche d'arbre ou on les laisse perir de faim et 
de rage. On appelle cela, ' Mettre un homme au sec' " 



114 MAXIM OF THE PLANTERS. 

must shudder ; and that deeds are even now 
done, which although sinking into insignificance 
when compared with those just glanced at, never 
cross my memory without curdling my very blood 
with horror. 

Previous, however, to specifying some of these, 
it is essential I should explain the principles 
which the planters have laid down for their 
guidance in all matters relating to the slaves : 
without this, the reader might experience diffi- 
culty in comprehending by what process they 
bring themselves to eradicate those sentiments 
of humanity which are generally believed indi- 
genous to the hearts of Englishmen. 

From generation to generation it has been 
handed down to them, that with " a hand of 

IRON ALONE CAN THE NEGRO BE KEPT IN SUB- 
JECTION." In this axiom, they imagine, is con- 
densed the essence of the profoundest policy; 
it is never absent from their minds ; it forms the 
groundwork of their every act. By never appeal- 
ing but to coercion, they have taught themselves 
to look upon their slaves as brutes without souls, 



MAXIM OF THE PLANTERS. 115 

will gravely argue to that effect, and really seem 
to believe, that because it has pleased the Almighty 
to bestow upon a race of men a complexion 
adapted to resist the heat of their native clime, 
those men were predestined to toil for the gratifica- 
tion of their oppressors' passion for gain, and that 
it is but just and reasonable these men should 
be doomed to everlasting bondage ; to life without 
hope, and to labour without reward. Thus people, 
who in England are considered kind and bene- 
ficent — who really are such in their domestic 
circles, proving themselves, on all occasions, gcxl 
masters to their European menials — no sooner 
mix with slaves, than they permit their humane 
feelings to disappear for ever, and those of demons 
to usurp the place, and in so acting steadfastly 
believe they best consult their own safety and 
advantage. " With a hand of iron alone 
can the negro be kept in subjection" is the reply 
to every counsel and remonstrance ; and assuredly 
no theory was ever so perseveringly, or so syste- 
matically, carried into practice. 

Conformably thereto, the negro is from his 



116 MAXIM OF THE PLANTERS. 

earliest infancy exposed to every species of out- 
rage and mortification most likely to break his 
spirit: the treachery, the heartlessness, the in- 
gratitude of his race, are the continued subjects 
of discourse before him, — no opportunity is lost 
of displaying to him that, in the estimation of his 
owner, he is far inferior to the beast of the field ; 
never is he spoken to in the accents of kindness ; 
never hears he a desire conveyed in the form of a 
request. " You black scoundrel, do this ;" — " You 
cursed niggar, come here," — are among the be- 
nignest of the forms of speech in daily use : delay in 
comprehending even a sign draws forth a torrent 
of abuse, and the most trivial error is visited with 
curses and blows. To such an extent are carried 
hatred and contempt of the blacks, and so keen is 
the jealousy of their assuming a momentary ap- 
pearance of equality with the whites, that these 
latter deem themselves disgraced if brought into 
proximity at the same place of public resort. 
Should a negro, by any chance, succeed in reaching 
the boxes of a theatre, he is quickly hustled into 
the pit, and from thence again into the streets ; 



ANECDOTE. 117 

and at church, too, let but a colonist perceive 
praying near him an unfortunate black, the rector 
is warned that the pews will be all deserted if 
a wretch like that be permitted to pollute by his 
presence the place set apart for the whites. 

A strong instance of this illiberal feeling oc- 
curred in Trinidad during the administration of 
Sir R. Woodford. His Excellency, at consi- 
derable expense to himself, caused a square to 
be built in the centre of the chief town, a boon 
of no little value, as until then there was no 
public promenade in the colony. While the 
work was in progress, nothing could equal the 
encomiums lavished upon Sir Ralph : his public 
spirit and munificence were the discourse of all. 

The square being completed, a day was fixed 
for its being thrown open to the public ; but who 
can describe the surprise and dismay of the colo- 
nists, when they learnt that by the word public, 
was intended all classes of the community, whether 
of white or black complexion. The governor was 
now regarded as a rash and dangerous innovator; 
and it was judged requisite to represent to him 



118 PHILANTHROPY OF SIR R. WOODFORD. 

that his new regulation, if persisted in, would infal- 
libly lead the negroes into disrespect, and that from 
disrespect there was but one step to insurrection. 

He, however, refused to rescind his order, 
smiling at the silly prejudices which he hoped to 
remove by his example. He had not then at- 
tained a full knowledge of the planters' character. 
He daily frequented the square ; a band was in 
attendance ; every inducement offered, but in 
vain: the minds of the colonists were incapable 
of responding to the sentiments of the philan- 
thropic Woodford ; and it was universally agreed 
upon, that no respectable inhabitant should be 
seen there as long as the blacks enjoyed the 
privilege of entry. The governor remaining in- 
exorable, a scheme was formed, from which it was 
calculated that their expulsion would be brought 
about, and that they would pass as utterly lawless 
and ungrateful. 

For many nights large portions of the iron 
railings were torn up ; the rare and valuable 
shrubs, which had been collected with such 
trouble from so many parts of the globe, were 



DISGRACEFUL CONSPIRACY. 119 

scattered about the streets, with other devastations 
that could be devised only by the basest minds. The 
newspapers were not slack in their descriptions 
of the height to which the slaves were carrying 
their daring, — " thanks to His Excellency's mad 
idea of raising them to a level with the whites." 
The first words in the morning were of the ravages 
of the preceding night; the last, on retiring to 
rest, were of the ravages to be committed by the 
" governor's friends " before the dawn. 

At length, however, the conspirators were de- 
tected ; — they were found among the chief notables 
of the island, the task having been undertaken by 
them with the view of stigmatizing the harmless 
slaves with the same ! Reader, does not this act 
speak volumes ? — at least, it did to Sir Ralph 
Woodford. 

From this, and similar traits, one might be apt 
to imagine that the colonists had always laid the 
flattering unction to their souls that slavery was 
destined to exist for ever; and that, in conse- 
quence, it was not incumbent upon them to en- 
deavour to conciliate by kindness a class of beings 



120 INFATUATION OF THE PLANTERS. 

who could never be raised to the condition of 
free men, nor ever be in a position to avenge their 
injuries. This, however, is not the case, as the 
planters, extraordinary as it may appear, have 
long been cursed with the conviction, that a period 
must eventually arrive, when the British govern- 
ment, even if composed of followers of Tory 
principles, would find the current of popular 
opinion setting too strong against slavery to be 
resisted. 

With an infatuation not to be understood, they 
have pertinaciously clung to the old system, 
making no preparation whatever for the coming 
storm, save a preparation which, after a momen- 
tary respite, will doom them, unpitied and unpro- 
tected, to its violence a thousand-fold increased. 
The idea of attaching the negroes to them by 
kindness, and paving the way for their becoming 
useful and willing free labourers, has always 
been, and still is, scouted by all ; and so far 
from any attempt having been made to improve 
their understandings by education and religious 
instruction, every proposition to that effect, ema- 



THE " NIGGER-TONGUE." 121 

nating from the philanthropic party, has been 
viewed with extreme jealousy, and instantly re- 
jected. As far as practicable (for the planters 
have had to contend with some good men, of 
whom hereafter,) the negroes have been retained 
in the most deplorable mental darkness ; and 
to prevent their emancipating themselves from 
it, impediments have been thrown in the way 
of their obtaining even an acquaintance with the 
English language! This is a startling assertion, 
but the reader may rest satisfied of its truth; 
for who that reflects, will deny, that the jargon 
styled " nigger-tongue" must have been expressly 
formed for them ; this idiom alone do they hear 
from their cradles, — they are invariably addressed 
in it, and from its being unintelligible to a stranger 
visiting the estates, while his tongue is equally so to 
the slaves, how can they reap instruction ? Nume- 
rous specimens of this will be found in the work 
sent out to the world by the planters, styled 
" Domestic Manners :" let any one refer to the 
colloquies stated there to have been carried on by 
and with slaves, — can they be comprehended ? — 



122 RELIGIOUS CEREMONIES SCORNED. 

Now, as it is equally easy to teach a child cor- 
rectly as incorrectly, can there exist a doubt that 
the colonists, in thus degrading their own intellect, 
(and it must have been a task requiring both 
trouble and time,) instead of striving to elevate 
that of the negro, have been actuated by other 
than the sinister motive I have assigned ? 

The chances of their being enlightened by 
books, or by conversations with benevolent stran- 
gers, being thus rendered remote, the next en- 
deavour has been directed towards shutting out 
from the poor negroes all respect for the word 
of God! Religion is openly scoffed at before 
them; its teachers loaded with abuse and ridicule; 
attendance at divine service systematically repro- 
bated and discouraged, to such a degree too, that 
I have known punishment follow the simple re- 
quest for permission to be present in a neighbour- 
ing Wesleyan place of worship. 

The most solemn ceremonies of our holy creed 
on all occasions affecting the slaves, are not only 
neglected, but absolutely scorned. No conse- 
crated ground receives the remains of the mise- 



IMPIOUS CONDUCT. 123 

rable bondsman ; no funeral rites are performed ;* 
(what planter could bring himself to pronounce 
over a black, " the soul of our dear brother here 
departed?") no baptism is bestowed on the new- 
born infant, while no observance of matrimony 
has authorized the connexion of that infant's 
parents. In respect to the latter ceremony, it 
may be said, that laws have been framed to check 
it, since the tax required is so preposterous, com- 
pared with the negroes' means, as to amount to a 
virtual prohibition ; thus coercing them into lead- 
ing a life of sin ! Surely the consequences (I 
trust I am not irreverent) will be visited by an 
all-just Deity, not on their heads, but on the 
heads of their impious owners. These latter, 
however, on this score, are sufficiently reckless, 
asserting that a larger increase of the stock (and 
what else care they for ?) is obtained by these 
means, than if the principle of wedlock were incul- 
cated. Even a funeral among the whites them- 



* These parts of the work apply now chiefly to estates at a dis- 
tance from the seat of Government ; formerly, however, they would 
have been of universal application. 



124 A FUNERAL. 

selves is rendered subservient to the diabolical 
wish of instilling contempt of religion into the 
hearts of the negro population. Until I had the 
misfortune to be an eye-witness, I could scarcely 
have conceived any thing so awfully horrid as the 
blasphemous ribaldry so often displayed on those 
occasions. 

The acquaintance of the deceased assemble at 
his residence ; the coffin, containing the corpse, 
is in the centre of the drawing-room, surrounded 
with tables furnished with the usual array of 
liquor and refreshments. The company having 
satiated themselves, commence staggering towards 
the burial-ground, passing jests the whole of the 
way, and even "booking" bets as to who among 
the group will next give rise to a similar joyous 
meeting : not one syllable of regret for the de- 
parted ; not one of these practical infidels reflects 
that he, on the morrow, may be summoned to 
eternity. And while this sinful mockery is being 
carried on, what is the conduct of the attending 
slaves? The reply is indeed a lesson. Nature 
reassumes her sway, and causes the accursed arts 



HUMILIATING CONTRAST. 125 

of the masters to recoil upon themselves ; the poor 
ignorant slaves, from the mere impulse of human 
feeling, moved by the solemnity of the occasion 
which has brought them together, are loud in their 
wailing and prayers, in defiance of their masters' 
sneers, and the taunts of being hypocrites and 
Methodists. 

What a spectacle! — Europeans — gentlemen 
— brutally carousing over the remains of one who 
was once their friend ! — Savages weeping and 
praying over what was once their tyrant. Alas, 
once more, for the misapplication of terms ! 

The colonists have always calculated, that if 
they were successful in keeping the slaves in a 
complete state of ignorance, they would possess in 
reserve one last powerful argument against, at all 
events, immediate emancipation; since some slight 
knowledge of religion and some little education 
must be requisite before the boon of unconditional 
freedom could be accorded without being a curse 
to the very class it was intended to benefit, and at 
the same time pregnant with certain ruin to the 
colonies. Provided this line of reasoning brought 



126 ERROR OF THE 

to their aid some few timid minds from the oppo- 
site ranks, or facilitated in any way their wish of 
grinding down their slaves to the very last mo- 
ment, and of afterwards obtaining their gratuitous 
servitude for a period never contemplated by the 
original framers of the "Abolition Bill," they were 
utterly callous to its branding them, at the same 
time, in the eyes of all reflecting persons, with 
the double sin of impiety and neglect : for to 
whom but themselves was to be attributed the 
benighted state of the negroes? Unhappily for 
the cause of humanity, the colonists were listened 
to, — they triumphed in the success of their schemes, 
— their injured and disappointed victims were 
doomed still to undergo six long years of slavery ! 
I must here, for one moment, beg permission 
to point out to those humane societies which for 
so many years have been advocating the cause of 
the slave, that, to their own lamentable oversight 
must be greatly attributed the successful issue to 
the above plausible and insidious reasoning on 
the part of the planters. While meetings were 
being held in every corner of Great Britain 



ANTI-SLAVERY PARTY. 127 

for the purpose of adopting measures against the 
continuance of slavery, — while petitions were in 
preparation, and so much stirring eloquence em- 
ployed in and out of parliament (and all in vain as 
far as immediate victory was concerned), — why did 
it not occur to the chief movers in the holy work 
to send among the slaves, teachers of the gospel, 
exacting from government, (and it would have 
been at once acceded to, if for no other object 
than that of silencing importunities,) that these 
teachers, so far from being loaded with oppro- 
brium, should be openly encouraged and pro- 
tected by the local executive : that repeated 
official reports should be transmitted touching 
the degree of countenance afforded them on the 
various estates, which they should have had the 
undisputed right of visiting at their discretion, 
and of the effects produced by their labours upon 
the negroes. 

Had this plan been acted on with vigour and 
determination, places of worship, however humble, 
must have sprung up, schools would have followed 
by degrees, and the force of circumstances alone, 



128 POLICY OF THE COLONISTS. 

without the necessity of a decree of the Imperial 
Parliament, or twenty millions being poured 
into the coffers of slave - owners, would have 
brought about, long ere this, the complete manu- 
mission of the still despairing bondsman. There 
is, however, ample opportunity of atoning for this 
oversight ; the past, it is true, cannot be recalled, 
still it may be rendered a mighty lesson for the 
future : for let hypocrites, or the designing, 
affirm what they may, slavery, by whatever name 
it is disguised, as yet exists in all its force, and 
except the abolition party again bestir itself, 
and cause some of the above hints to be acted 
upon, the horrid system will assuredly not be an- 
nihilated in our day. 

The effects which I have described as following 
the baneful policy maintained by the colonists 
towards their slaves, may at first sight appear in 
some points inconsistent; with the view, there- 
fore, of setting myself right with the reader, I 
must interrupt the direct course of my observations. 

It will naturally be demanded, if such attempts 
are made to demoralize the negro population, and if 



DISPOSITION OF THE SLAVES. 129 

for the accursed end, precept and example are so 
strenuously employed, how can it possibly come to 
pass, that, unrestrained (as must be believed) by 
those feelings which govern civilized man, the 
slaves should remain tranquil and submissive ; that 
so far from breaking out into insurrection, and 
taking a fierce, and, one might almost add, just 
vengeance upon their oppressors, they should bear 
themselves as if they had " drunk of the pure 
and living stream." 

In the first place, the naturally mild and 
gentle disposition of these poor people, has, by 
habit, been rendered so entirely timid and passive, 
that the dungeon and the lash have operated more 
powerfully than the prospect of a life of prolonged 
misery. 

This, however, in the course of time, when the 
question of emancipation came to be seriously dis- 
cussed, and when it could no longer be concealed 
from the blacks that they possessed numerous high- 
minded, energetic advocates, would have proved 
but a feeble barrier against the natural feelings of 
man, and those feelings might, when once aroused, 
g 3 



130 THE MISSIONARIES. 

have exhibited themselves in a form that would 
have spread havoc and misery over the whole of 
our West India possessions, had it not been for 
the pious labours of a class of men whom the 
colonists have invariably persecuted with deadly 
rancour, whose blood they have panted for, in 
whose blood they may be said to have imbrued 
their hands,* and whom, through their organs, 
they have attacked with revolting malice. 

Who, then, are these benefactors to our colonies, 
these ill-requited, outraged benefactors ? 

The Missionaries, or, as they are denominated 
without distinction in the West Indies, the 
Methodists. 

I can picture to myself the cry of scorn which 
this declaration will call forth from the impious and 
the cunning, as well as from that large class of well- 
intentioned, though weak-minded, individuals, who 

* Who will deny that the excellent and pious missionary, Rev. 
J. Smith, was murdered at Demerara ? Before the court-martial, 
by which he was tried, had come to a decision, a gallows was pre- 
pared for the prisoner. Such was the ambition for the honour of sit- 
ting upon his trial, that the Chief Justice (I believe Wray was his 
name) obtained a Military Commission to fit him to become a 
member of the Court. 



GRATITUDE DUE TO THEM. 131 

with their mother's milk have sucked in contempt 
for the term Methodist. Nevertheless, I again 
repeat, the Methodists ! and affirm, that to them 
the colonists owe a debt of gratitude, which it 
would be as impossible ever to repay, as it is to 
atone for the injuries which have been inflicted on 
them. 

Without the Methodists, the schemes of the 
planters would in every case have been successful ; 
the negroes must have remained in mental dark- 
ness ; and, what never occurred to the base, though 
short-sighted, intriguers, revolt and crime would 
have followed. 

And while the Methodists have thus protected 
the colonists from themselves, to the slaves they 
have been equally the rock of salvation. I speak 
not in a spiritual point of view, although I might 
expatiate on the fact, that without them the negroes 
would have been to this day ignorant that a God 
exists, and that they themselves have souls to be 
cared for; but I allude here to their temporal 
condition. 

When they had become in some little degree 



132 THE MISSIONARIES, 

enlightened, and were almost bowed down in 
despair at the eternal bondage which appeared to 
await them and their children, and their chil- 
dren's children, the Methodists have consoled them ; 
when excited by the hope of immediate free- 
dom, the Methodists have inculcated modera- 
tion ; when glowing with disappointment at their 
emancipation being conditional and remote, the 
Methodists have preached resignation ; and when 
writhing under the increased severities to which 
they were at first exposed in their new condition 
of apprentices, the Methodists have preached obe- 
dience. 

If thus much has been effected by the 
Methodists, unprotected and unsupported by the 
Executive,* slandered and ridiculed by the colo- 
nists, what would they not have accomplished if 
backed by the arm of power ? 

Can there be a doubt as to the realization of 



* Mrs. Carmichael asserts that the Governor of St. Vincent, 
with whom she passed " many happy moments," apologized for 
subscribing to the " society" in the following terms : " That it was 
necessary sometimes to hold a candle to the devil in this world." 
P. 234. 



THEIR EXCELLENT DOCTRINES. 133 

some, at least, of the results glanced at in prece- 
ding pages ? 

Repeatedly have I enjoyed the gratification of 
witnessing missionaries addressing flocks composed 
chiefly of slaves, many of whom had come by 
stealth to hear the " holy word," and might 
reckon upon the " lash" in consequence ; and I 
conscientiously believe, that when they "went 
their way," after the parting blessing, they were 
better men, and resolved to be more submissive 
slaves. 

On these occasions the tone and delivery of the 
preachers are admirably appropriate ; no rounded 
periods, no doctrine above the comprehension of 
the listeners, but all of the simplest nature and the 
purest, where true religion is concerned; and, at 
the same time, as I have said before, of a truly 
beneficial tendency as regards the interests of the 
planters themselves, since the voice which preaches 
duty towards God, tells the attentive slaves that 
this duty cannot be thoroughly discharged, except 
they yield obedience even to their temporal mas- 
ters, in those offices where the law gives them a 



134 THE MISSIONARIES. 

right to claim it. And yet, these wise and excel- 
lent teachers have been held up to the British 
public as incendiaries and agitators ! 

At all hours of the day or night are they to be 
found in the work of righteousness. Towards the 
dawn you may meet them pale and jaded, just come 
from the sick-bed of some dying negro, by the side 
of which they had passed the night in prayer ; and 
if, returning home late, you perceive a light in some 
solitary hovel, and curiosity, or a more worthy 
motive, direct your footsteps thither, again the 
zealous missionary is to be seen administering 
consolation to the inmates. 

The veracious authors of " Domestic Manners in 
the West Indies," have been pleased to assert, that 
nothing is farther from the fact than the statements 
heard sometimes in England, of the labours per- 
formed and hardships endured by the missionaries 
in the West Indies.* I certainly cannot divine by 
what criteria these people have judged, as my 
own impartial observations lead me to a widely 

* Page 243, vol. ii. 



CALUMNIES OF THE COLONISTS. 135 

different conclusion. I have known them com- 
pelled to undertake painful journeys on foot, how- 
ever inclement the season, trusting almost to 
chance for food, sleeping often under trees by 
night, for it would indeed be vain to seek for 
support or shelter under a planter's roof, where 
they might, in a literal sense, ask for " a loaf, and 
receive a stone." I have seen them exposed to 
this, fainting with fatigue, illness marked in every 
lineament of the countenance. Is it possible not 
to respect men who undergo all this with no earthly 
object but that of fulfilling a sacred, disinterested 
task? 

Mild, and unassuming in their manners^ ready 
to do a service to all men, however irksome or 
humble the call, diligent in their labours, up- 
right in their dealings, have I invariably found 
the missionaries of every denomination.* The 
colonists, through their willing tools, the same 
authors above-mentioned, have had the unblushing 
impudence to declare, that the missionaries are so 

* And this was likewise the case in Asia, where several of the 
writer's early years were passed. 



136 THE MISSIONARIES. 

very unpolished,* that it is perfectly impossible 
for them to mix in the good society of the islands. 
I do not pretend to say where their ideas as to 
what is polished or unpolished may have been 
acquired, but I am induced to feel satisfied, in 
my own mind, that none but a West India slave- 
owner, or one reared in the poisonous atmosphere 
of colonial society, would pronounce unpolished 
the grave, placid demeanor of the missionaries whom 
I have met ; and if they mix not in that valued 
circle, on which so much eulogy is lavished, the 
cause must be traced to their being the reverse of 
tyrants and blasphemers, of extortioners and sen- 
sualists. In an insolently arrogant and protecting 
manner, the plantersf promise a cordial reception 
in the West Indies, to all missionaries who con- 
duct themselves as Christians and gentlemen. 
Unhappily a sugar estate is not precisely the 
region in which the proper signification of these 
terms can be learnt, and consequently the meaning 
here attached to them is a problem to me, which I 

* Page 235. f Page 246. 



THEIR CHARACTER AND DEMEANOR. 137 

shall not endeavour to solve : but if to live conti- 
nently, — if to be models even to the virtuous, 
restrainers of the vicious, if to more than share 
their mite with the poor, to do unto all men as 
they would wish to be done by, — if these things 
constitute Christians, such, assuredly, are the 
missionaries. 

But if (and here I suspect I approach somewhat 
nearer the mark of the planters and their clique) — 
if to scandalously and openly violate God's holy 
commandments, — ■ if to scoff and to lie, — to be 
eaten up with envy, hatred, and malice, — if to 
invent and retail slander, — be requisite to form 
Christians, these people are correct — such are not 
the missionaries. And it is to be hoped that they 
may continue to be looked upon as ineligible to 
the " good society of the West Indies," as long as 
that society remains on its present footing. 

Let no mortification, therefore, be experienced 
by the missionaries at the abuse dealt out to them 
from so many quarters ; let them not mistake " the 
venom of the shaft for the vigour of the bow ;" but 
smiling at the malice of their enemies, and at the 



138 THE MISSIONARIES. 

same time praying that " their hearts may be 
turned," let them be grateful at having escaped 
the disgrace of their praises. 

But for all these trials, what reward does the 
missionary reap ? 

He lives reviled, and, friendless and unknown, 
finds a premature grave in a distant land. 

There is, however, another world. He knows 
it — he feels it — and, blessed in his last moments 
by the reflection of a useful and well-spent life, he 
dies happy. 



DISPROPORTION BETWEEN THE SEXES. 139 



CHAPTER IX. 



Disproportion between the Sexes — Causes — Task-work — Flog- 
ging — Armed Collars — Sweating Stocks — Cases of Atrocity — 
Conduct of the Colonial Ladies — Anecdote of one — Depravities 
on a Plantation — Anecdote — Hints as to what a Commission 
might detect — A Lottery — The Prizes — Impunity with which 
Murders of Negroes were committed before the "Abolition 
Act" — A Document well worthy of perusal. 



In the preceding chapter sufficient has been told 
to convey a tolerably accurate notion of what the 
negroes are, to this very day, made to suffer. I 
flatter myself, that the plain, unvarnished outline 
I have sketched, carries with it such an appear- 
ance of fidelity, that little filling up is required 
to awaken in every bosom, not quite dead to the 
best feelings of human nature, sympathy for the 



140 DISPROPORTION BETWEEN 

oppressed and injured slave : but that I may not 
lay myself open to the charge of dealing in gene- 
ral accusations and invective, I will now describe, 
with some little minuteness, a portion of the well- 
authenticated atrocities which directly or indi- 
rectly reached my knowledge. 

To the stranger in the West Indies few things 
can occasion matter of so much surprise as the 
disproportion, in many of the islands, in the 
numbers of the sexes — the male exceeding the 
other in a degree quite wonderful. The least 
observant traveller could not fail to be struck with 
the fact ; but should he proceed to inquire into, 
and analyze the causes, his marvel will be not 
that the proportion of females is so small, but 
that it is not far less. 

I will not stop to inquire how far this state 
may have been brought about by the attempts to 
procure abortion, so prevalent on the estates 
before the " Abolition Act," and which, from 
their unskilful nature, often terminated in the 
death of the wretched beings maddened to the 
commission of the act by the idea of giving birth 



THE SEXES. 141 

to a race of slaves,* and dooming them to the 
misery which they themselves were compelled to 
undergo ; but there have long existed other 
causes which have operated quite as effectually 
to fill the charnel-house with female victims. 

Worked as they are, far beyond their strength, 
during their pregnancy, and to its very last mo- 
ment; often giving birth to their offspring in the 
fields, and too soon afterwards made to resume 
labour at the canes (all which are notorious facts, 
notwithstanding the hypocritical statements put 
forth by the slavers on this particular subject), is 
it wonderful that the disproportion is so great ? 

Let the reader calmly calculate the following 
" task-work" f required from all the females, and 
then say whether it be not sufficient to drag even 
a strong and healthy woman to the grave, and 
much more one who is weak and sickly : — 

Weeding-canes — 5 rows of 170 cane-holes each, 850. 

* In ten years, 50,000 of the black population have melted away, 
instead of increasing according to the laws of nature. In Trini- 
dad, in 1820, the slaves amounted to 24,868 ; in 1822, to 22,328. 

f This is taken from an estate where the negroes are considered 
to be treated in a peculiarly gentle way since the Emancipation Act. 



142 TASK-WORK. 

The strongest man on the estate, commencing 
at six o'clock, must toil without intermission until 
two or three in the afternoon to finish the above ! 
The strong women take two hours longer, while 
the sickly must begin at four in the morning, so 
as to have the slightest chance of finishing by 
night-fall: it rarely happens that they are even 
then able to accomplish it, in which event the 
deficiency must be made up on Saturdays and 
Sundays. 

Cutting Canes 3 rows. 

Digging Cane-holes 100 

Fetching and planting Canes . . 200 

Boiling-house, from six in the morning till 
twelve at night ; seldom earlier, and often two 
hours later. 

For this last occupation they receive, in money, 
threepence per day. Wondrous liberality ! 

I once more ask, whether the smallness of the 
number of women, compared with the men, is to 
be marvelled at ? 

I have often conversed with managers of estates 



FLOGGING. 143 

on this topic, and have heard them frankly admit 
that they were literally killing the females by 
overworking them ; but that their employers, 
mostly mortgagee agents, had peremptorily en- 
joined them to think of the present alone, and 
that, at whatever sacrifice of life, a specified 
quantity of sugar must in the season be shipped 
to Europe. 

Added to all this, the females were for many 
years, equally with the men, subjected to corporal 
punishment. At the discretion of a brutal over- 
seer they have been liable to have their flesh 
hacked by cart-whips, — to be marked with scars 
never to be erased ! 

To one not thoroughly demoralized by colonial 
habits, what can be more horrid, or speak more 
forcibly for the state of " Domestic Manners in 
the West Indies," than the pertinacity* with 

* Even at Barbadoes, where the people are a shade more civilized 
than in the other islands, Sir Lionel Smith observed enough to 
induce him to express to the king's government his belief that 
" the cat is in active use at the station-houses upon male and 
female offenders." His Excellency proceeded further to express 
his dissent from the opinion advanced by the Assembly, that disas- 
trous results would be produced by any relaxation of the system. 



144 FLOGGING. 

which the planters have claimed the right of 
flogging their female slaves. Imagine a woman 
brought out before the whole assembled gang, 
then stripped of her covering, and thrown upon 
the earth, her legs and arms tightly held by four 
men. These appalling preparations concluded, 
executioners, armed with knotted cords, proceed 
to inflict stripe after stripe, until nature almost 
sinks under the murderous punishment ; during 
the whole of which, as if by every means to 
heighten the atrocity, the children of the culprit 
are made to attend, to witness the torture and the 
nakedness of her who gave them birth. This 
ceremonious manner of proceeding is not, how- 
ever, invariably observed: it often occurs that 
the overseer cannot curb his fury sufficiently long 
to admit of the requisite preparations; in this 
event, the criminal, her body bared, is laid across 
the shafts of a cart drawn by mules, the "driver" 
following with whip in hand, and continuing to 
direct the lash, with unerring aim, at the same 
precise spot, until he has worked deep into the 
flesh, and well established what he facetiously 



FLOGGING., 145 

calls a " raw ;" the miserable woman forced all 
the time to remain in the most favourable posture 
for the fullest execution of the hellish deed, know- 
ing that if she swerved, or relaxed her convulsive 
hold, she must be crushed under the cart-wheels, 
or the hoofs of the mules. 

In fact, flogging is practised in almost every 
form, and for almost every fault.* The colonists 
prefer the adoption of this system of punishment, 
offering as a reason, that they are thereby deprived 
for a less time of their slaves' labour than were im- 
prisonment awarded. This may be their feeling ; 
and I am averse to believe any race of men can 
derive pleasure from the sufferings of their fellow- 
men ; at the same time, the belief would be far 
from illiberal on the part of those who, like me, had 
had ocular proof of the hatred with which the ne- 
groes are regarded by the heartless and ungrateful 



* A female lunatic, commonly called Cato, was taken up one 
evening in * * *, and sent to jail for giving vent to her raving by 
singing and making a noise in the street. She received corporal 
punishment without respect to her sex or situation ; and although 
deranged, she felt so indignant at being thus degraded, that she 
tore her dress, and hung herself with it in an outhouse ! 



146 FLOGGING. 

beings whom they enrich by their labour ; nor 
would this belief be in any shape staggered, if, on 
visiting some of the jails where females were at 
work on the tread-mill, they learnt that this 
punishment, so far from being a substitute for 
the lash, was given in addition ! — for should any 
of the culprits evince the least sign of weakness 
or inattention on these occasions, the jailer, or 
his deputy, (themselves perhaps planters in a 
small way,) standing by with a whip, and wielding 
it with a dexterity only to be acquired by a very 
long apprenticeship, brings its thongs under one 
arm-pit of the " guilty one," completing the blow 
under that of the other, after having duly made 
the circuit of the breasts and neck. 

The reader who has been in the habit of seeing 
persons on the tread-mill will easily understand 
how fearful must be one single blow received as I 
have described, when the arms are extended con- 
siderably above the head. 

I have known of women, who, for being a few 
minutes late, after the cracking of tHe whip had 
summoned them to the field, have had their necks 



SWEATING-STOCKS. 147 

encircled with collars of tin armed with spikes, 
such as are sometimes seen in England round the 
throats of dogs ; only in the cases I allude to, the 
spikes were inverted, and on the slightest turn 
of the wearers' heads, excoriated and ploughed 
up the flesh. 

I have known of women being placed in a pe- 
culiar description of stocks,* appropriately termed 
" sweating-stocks," from the quickness with which 
they extract all moisture from the body ; the per- 
son being bent forward in a half-standing position, 
the feet tied several inches from the ground, and 
the wrists fastened to staples in the walls; by 
which contrivance almost the entire weight 
was thrown on the arms and ancles ; in which 
agonizing state these miserable women were sen- 
tenced to remain twelve hours ! I am the more 
particular in describing this last trait of " planter 
discipline," as Mrs. Carmichael declares, " that 
so tender-hearted are the owners of slaves in the 
West Indies, that the very stocks are covered 
with curtains to protect the said slaves from the 
* See Note 1. 

h2 



148 CASES OF ATROCITY. 

attacks of mosquitoes!" It is a pity she did 
not continue, that every cell is furnished with a 
Turkey-carpet, and every criminal executed with 
a silken rope, which would have been equally true 
with her other assertion, and not much less ridicu- 
lous. But enough of this lady's tales ; let me con- 
tinue my version of her friends' gentle mercies. 

I have known of a young female,* who having 
from the hardships she had undergone contracted 
an ulcerous habit of body, which rendered her 
unfit for work, was turned helpless into the 
streets; and who, after obtaining from a chari- 
table black an asylum for four years, and being 
in some degree recovered from her disease, al- 
though with the loss of the greater part of one 
of her feet, was seized by her master, who had 
heard of her improved condition, and sentenced 
to one month's imprisonment on the tread-mill 
as a runaway slave. I listened with indescribable 
emotion to the prayer of this poor thing's mother, 
imploring the release of the cripple child, and I 
perused with feelings of indignation, which I am 
* See Note 2. 



CASES OF ATROCITY. 149 

certain will be shared by the reader, a certificate 
from a planter-doctor, that " the loss of toes was 
no obstacle to working on the tread-mill !" 

I have known of a woman,* who, after having 
so long and so faithfully served her master, as to 
be known by the familiar appellation of that 
master's " Black Diamond," on a trifling dispute 
suddenly transported to a distant estate ; the owner 
of which had purchased her cheap, on the condition 
that she should never be permitted to quit until 
the extreme term of her servitude was completed ! 

I have heard from the lips of another woman, f 
and received ample corroboration from those of 
others of her truth, how, in the ninth month of 
her pregnancy, she had been abruptly sold to a 
fresh master, and ordered to quit for ever the 
estate to which she had become accustomed, and 
where her husband was still to remain ! I myself 
saw this wretched being, still in the ninth month 
of her pregnancy, half dead with fatigue and 
fright, she having in despair escaped from her 
owner, and walked one day and three nights 
* See Note 3. f See Note 4. 



150 CASES OF ATROCITY. 

through the woods, on her way to the Government 
House, where she hoped to obtain redress. I 
have known of mothers having their children torn 
for ever from their arms,* for no other reason than 
that the sums tendered for permission to rear 
their own offspring were considered insufficient 
by the unnatural and rapacious master. I could 
unroll a long, long catalogue of similar acts,-)- but 
I feel it to be unnecessary. 

I have said enough to account for the dispropor- 
tion of the sexes, and, I might almost add, to account 
for the horrible practice to which I have alluded. 

We will now turn to examine whether the treat- 
ment of the male slaves corresponds in any form 
with that of the female. 

It will be but an act of kindness towards the 
authoress on whose work I have observed, to com- 
mence by directing her attention to an incident 
which occurred on a plantation once her own, and 
which, under the name of the Laurel Hill, she 
makes out a perfect negro paradise. 

On this estate then, an old man, upwards of 
* See Note 5. f See Note 6. 



CASES OF ATROCITY. 151 

sixty years of age, was sentenced for I really know 
not what to term it, (certainly not a crime ; let the 
curious peruse his petition)* — to be imprisoned in a 
dungeon, the walls of which were plastered with 
fresh undried mortar, and where the only air 
which could penetrate was through a hole one foot 
square. There was no place for the poor wretch 
to rest upon, beyond the boards attached to 
the stocks. (He mentions nothing of mosquito 
curtains.) 

From all this combined, he suffered so severely 
as to be unable to move on the second day of his 
confinement, save on all fours, like a quadruped ; 
independently of which, had it not been for the 
interposition of the very jailer, he must have 
almost expired from starvation, even had it been 
possible for him to have otherwise dragged on 
existence to the completion of his sentence. 

I knew another man, eighty-six years of age,f 

and who in his own country had been a priest, still 

forced, after a slavery of half a century, to labour 

in the fields. From time to time his children had 

* See Note 7. f See Note 8. 



152 CASES OF ATROCITY. 

been removed from him, and he was at length left 
friendless and alone. 

He still, however, remembered his former days 
of freedom. " I was born free," (was his touching 
expression in my presence,) " and I wish to die 
free. I ask no remuneration for my servitude of 
fifty years : the church to which I belong will 
support me for the few days I have yet to live." 

I beseech every one whose eyes may fall on 
these pages, to read over the petition taken from 
the lips of the broken-hearted old man, and then 
find epithets, if there be any in our language 
sufficiently strong, to do justice to that master 
who rendered the prayer necessary, or to that 
governor who, so far from deigning a reply to the 
appeal, suffered its author to drop into the grave 
a despairing slave ! 

I have known of negroes being seized for their 
master's debts, incarcerated among felons in the 
public prison, then sold by auction, and trans- 
ported for ever by their new owners far from 
their friends and family. 

I have often seen in the same advertisement 



CASES OF ATROCITY. 153 

a proposed sale of slaves and mules ;* I have more 
than once attended, and witnessed the alternate 
putting up, and knocking down of beasts and men. 

I have seen negroes on whose left feet were 
masses of corruption utterly incurable, brought on 
by the cruel labour which had been required Oi 
them as fire-feeders, and out of which putrid and 
fiery furnaces, caterpillars and grubs were trying 
to work their way in defiance of the layers of 
charcoal and tobacco-leaf which enveloped the use- 
less limbs ; notwithstanding which condition, these 
negroes were still forced to toil in hopeless misery 
to the maximum of their remaining strength. 

I have known of disgusting, almost poisonous 
medicines being administered, and on one occasion 
by a lady, to slaves whom the merciful owners 
were pleased to consider feigning sickness, and 
which medicines gave a shock to the constitutions 
from which they never recovered. 

I have seen a party of negroes on a holiday 

decked in their gala trim, all mirth and laughter, 

about to enter on some innocent recreation, when 

* See Note 9. 

H 3 



154 CASES OF ATROCITY. 

a band of colonial brutes in human forms, dashing 
on horseback among them, have by blows and 
kicks dispersed them like chaff before the wind. 

I have seen planters enter huts where negroes 
were amusing themselves in dancing, and, felling 
the poor people in all directions, have speedily 
converted a scene of harmless hilarity into one of 
misery and of wailing. This perhaps (at least so say 
the colonists themselves) is not done from motives 
of cruelty, but from an idea that the slaves by over- 
dancing themselves would be incapacitated from 
performing the following day's work with vigour. 

I have repeatedly seen a negro on the public 
road quietly smoking a cigar, but, neglecting to 
remove it from his lips with due rapidity on the 
approach of a colonist, a blow from a stick or fist 
has laid it drenched with blood at his feet. This 
again, according to colonial reasoning, is not meant 
for oppression, but to teach the black man the re- 
spect due to the white. Such is the prevailing 
system ! such a few of its practical results ! 

Where, it will be asked, are the female relatives 
of these barbarians ? Sleeps then in the colonies 



COLONIAL LADIES. 155 

the influence of the gentle sex in refining and 
humanizing man ? Alas ! the truth must be told ; 
there the gentle sex loses entirely its benign 
character, and (such is the accursed effect pro- 
duced by the constant sight of slavery,) even assists 
in swelling the torrent of cruelty and oppression. 

I have listened with horror and astonishment to 
the rancorous sentiments issuing from female lips 
whenever in society the discourse happened to 
turn upon the negroes. Ladies who in England 
would have almost fainted at the bare idea of 
treading even upon a spider, will, after a very few 
months' residence in the colonies, converse in an 
unconcerned tone on the number of lashes which 
had been inflicted during the morning on their 
own or their husbands' slaves. I particularly 
remember entering rather suddenly a room with- 
out being announced, and there I beheld a negress 
on her knees before her young mistress, beseeching, 
with agonizing eloquence, that the flogging to 
which she had been ordered might be remitted. 
I heard her remind the mistress, that the same 
breast had given them suck — that their infancy 



156 CONDUCT OF 

had been passed together — that they had married 
at the same time — at the same time become 
mothers, and that from her milk the children of 
both had received sustenance. The reply was a 
cold stern refusal of pardon. I even yet feel the 
chill which crept through my frame, when the 
poor woman, perceiving my presence, dashed 
herself at my feet, and convulsively clasping me, 
implored my mediation. I was successful ; but to 
rise to the highest honours of my profession, I 
would not supplicate mortal, as I supplicated on 
this occasion. 

I have seen young and lovely women turn from 
chaunting the most sentimental songs, to issue 
directions for the immediate whipping of a slave 
who had mislaid a piece of music, and then revert 
to their warbling unmoved by the cries of the 
victim undergoing the punishment in the yard. 

I have likewise seen negro servants appear with 
their shoulders all scarred and festered from the 
recent lash, and been lispingly told by the respec- 
tive mistresses (mild and gentle beings too, strange 
as it may seem, where the odious " blacks " were 



THE COLONIAL LADIES. 157 

not concerned) that these records of English 
female humanity had been imprinted on the 
" worthless" creatures for being absent when they 
were required to fan away mosquitoes. 

I have known of ladies, and those too of rank 
and reputation in the society of the place, who 
were in the habit of often with their own hands 
inflicting corporal punishment on their slaves ; and 
in one instance, in the island of Trinidad, the fair 
executioner performed the operation with such 
determined vigour and severity as to render it 
incumbent on government to bring the circum- 
stance before the judicial authorities. 

Can any thing be more atrocious than these 
proceedings ? I grieve to reply that what I am 
now about to enter upon, will make them appear 
so many trifles. 

The sexual intercourse carried on by the plan- 
ters with the negresses is the disgusting theme. 
Would that I could persuade myself to pass it in 
silence, but I cannot ; a stern sense of what is due 
to truth and morality commands me to speak. I 
will however be brief, and strive to treat of it in 









158 DEPRAVITIES ON 

a way the least likely to shock the feelings, or 
bring blushes to the cheeks of those female readers, 
who, not having been cursed with a lengthened 
sojourn in the noxious land of which I am writing, 
have hearts that yet feel, and have not yet lost the 
power of blushing. 

No eloquence, however forcible, could describe, 
as they ought to be described, the profligacy and 
dissoluteness existing on a plantation in the West 
Indies. 

The entire gang of female slaves are in succession 
made subservient to the brutal lust of the owner, 
who turns them off as satiety or caprice dictates ; 
one day they are to be seen seated in silks at his 
table, and partaking of the same couch, and on 
the following, working in the fields, and under- 
going the lash. 

No female, without being prepared to meet con- 
sequences really awful to reflect upon, dare reject 
the proffers of her master — no husband dare refuse 
him his wife — no mother her child. 

The progeny resulting from these connexions 
are at once born the slaves of their fathers, a 



A PLANTATION. 159 

calculation before-hand of the heartless mis- 
creants. 

They trade with these children, they sell them 
to other planters, even knowing them to be more 
brutal than themselves ; they flog them too 
equally with the other slaves ; and even since the 
" Abolition Act," fathers have been known to bring 
their own sons before a magistrate, requiring him 
to adjudge them the cat-o'-nine tails for some 
trifling boyish error. 

In one of these cases, the resemblance between 
parent and child was so strong, that the magistrate, 
although not suspecting the shocking fact, laugh- 
ingly observed it, when the monster at once, 
without shame, acknowledged the relationship. I 
am happy to add that the case was dismissed with 
the scorn and indignation it deserved.* 



* The magistrate in question was Lieutenant-Colonel Bush, K.H. 
the present Commander of the First West-India Regiment. Would 
that he could be persuaded to give to the public a " Diary of Fifteen 
Months' Residence in the West Indies, as a stipendiary magistrate." 
The worthless set with whom he had to deal would be admirably ex- 
posed, while the detail of his own conduct would be a model for 
imitation by any of the present stipendiaries who may wish to act 
fairly, honourably, and impartially. 



160 DEPRAVITIES ON 

The female children are likewise slaves. Oc- 
casionally it happens that the fathers, priding them- 
selves on humanity and tenderness, procure esta- 
blishments for them by delivering them over as 
mistresses to their friends, literally forcing com- 
pliance on the beings to whom they have given 
birth: but this is a stretch of kindness not very 
common, as more often the girls are retained in a 
bona fide state of slavery, and at a " fitting 
period" (to employ the colonial slang,) that is to 
say, when just merging from infancy, become the 
prey of their own fathers' legitimate European off- 
spring ! 

What deeds of cruelty and of incest are thus 
engendered by slavery ! 

The father damning his own offspring to eternal 
bondage, the brother debauching his own sister! 

All these things are well known to those whose 
destiny has taken them to the West Indies, and 
for aught I know, may have been already exposed, 
in which latter event I shall be sneered at for re- 
counting a thrice-told tale. So be it ; any thing is 
preferable to allowing the public mind to slumber 



A PLANTATION. 161 

over the atrocities which have been practised, are 
practising, and will continue to be practised, unless 
the planters be forced to perform their part of 
the contract with the same righteous fidelity that 
has been observed by the scandalously deceived 
and injured negro. 

The following is a fair sample of the spirit ac- 
tuating the colonists when a female is concerned, 
as what the hero did, few of his class would blush 
at imitating. 

In the island of resided a planter, very 

popular among the community, and holding the 
appointment of magistrate. He took under his 
protection a remarkably intelligent young negro 
girl, daughter of one of his slaves. Soon satiated 
by possession, he availed himself of the first dis- 
pute to withdraw his favour ; but too heartless and 
avaricious to make her free, he directed his over- 
seer to place her at work among the field negroes, 
adding, that as her head was turned by her good 
luck in having lived with him, it would be requi- 
site to " flog the sulks out of her." 

Some time after this occurrence, the love (!) of 



162 DEPRAVITIES ON 

her master being again awakened, she was directed 
to attend at his residence. Ignorant of the pur- 
pose, she hastened to obey, but on learning it, she 
resolutely refused again to yield, observing, per- 
haps in terms not altogether respectful, on the 
treatment she had already undergone. This bold 
demeanour soon converted every tender feeling on 
the part of her master into hate : he determined 
forthwith to make an example of the rebellious 
slave. The poor girl possessed handsome curls, 
in which all her little vanity was centered, and in 
which she had perhaps been encouraged in happier 
days by this very man, who now seizing her by 
them, vociferated loudly for a razor ; the affrighted 
menials who had run at his call remained motion- 
less ; unable to delay his vengeance, he laid hold of 
a carving knife, and striking the head of the miser- 
able girl upon a table, commenced hacking away ; 
and partly with the knife, partly by tearing up 
whole handfuls by the roots, he eventually suc- 
ceeded in depriving her of her hair. 

By accident, (I really hope it was an accident, 
and that he did not really intend to scalp her) 



A PLANTATION. 163 

during this operation, the steel entered the flesh, 
a portion of which fell with the sheared locks to 
the ground. 

On expressing indignation at this occurrence to 
the parties from whom I heard it, I was quizzed 

as a " saint," they declaring that if Mr. had 

committed an error in the heat of the moment, 
he had fully atoned for the " untoward event," 
since he not only sent his own surgeon to ex- 
amine the wound, but on the recovery of the 
slave did not insist she should defray any portion 
of the expense, nor even pull up in her extra hours 
the time lost by her illness. 

Here I stop in my delineations, not for want of 
materials, but solely from an apprehension of ex- 
tending them to too great a length, and of being led 
into details which might be considered almost too 
horrid for publication. Were it not for this idea, 
I would exhibit numerous cases of rape* which 
have been committed by planters on mere infants 
belonging to their estates. 

I could record the names of manyf who have 
* See Note 10. f See Note 11. 



164 DEPRAVITIES ON 

been by the local authorities appointed to high 
situations in the colonies, with the charge of rape 
hanging over their heads ; and I could describe 
sundry cases of the same shocking nature, which 
were arbitrarily dismissed without investigation, 
even when medical men of the highest respecta- 
bility had volunteered proof of the injury ; but I 
pause ; — these things might not obtain implicit 
credence, emanating from a private individual. 
Would, however, that, following the example of 
France, England were to send a Commission to 
the West Indies to collect information on the 
treatment of the slaves, and of the apprentices, and 
respecting the colonial system generally ; facts 
then might be elicited, which would indeed sur- 
prise the world. 

What, if it were proved, that even since the 
Abolition of the Slave Trade by this country, more 
than one colony belonging to Great Britain has 
been supplied with slaves, and that, particularly 
in the Island of Trinidad, the regular slave-trade 
between it and certain foreign settlements never 
ceased until the year 1833, independently of 






A PLANTATION. 165 

negroes who had heen brought from St. Domingo, 
Guadaloupe, and the Spanish Main ? 

What, if evidence not to he rebutted were 
tendered, that until very lately (1833), numerous 
individuals have been in the habit of clearing 
vessels at Dominica, running into Martinique, 
embarking negroes, mostly Creoles, and some- 
times Africans, landing them at night at Port 
of Spain, conveying them to the place of rendez- 
vous, and then parcelling them to the bespeakers, 
who, bestowing fresh names, were thereby enabled 
to substitute youthful bondsmen for those defunct 
naturally or otherwise ? • 

* The annexed passages, taken from a publication in England, 
although written on the subject of the Mauritius, apply, in every 
particular, to the West- Indies : — 

" In six months, at the Mauritius, two thousand slaves, illegally 
obtained, have been liberated." 

" The registers appear perfect and unobjectional, but they are 
compiled from false returns ; returns so fraudulent, that their ve- 
rification has been again and again reported impracticable." 

" These frauds have been practised to cloak illegal importations ; 
and so extensive has been the conspiracy to cover these malprac- 
tices, and so powerful the faction by which that conspiracy has been 
organized, that the local government has been overawed — all honest 
public functionaries intimidated — the course of justice successfully 
and uniformly impeded — the legal tribunals tainted and corrupted, 
and the colonial minister alternately deceived into erroneous views 
of the case, or intimidated into mischievous concessions." 



166 HINTS FOR 

What if the Commission should learn, that in 
one island alone there exist more than two thou- 
sand slaves thus illegally imported, for whom the 
pirate owners will receive upwards of 100,000/. 
compensation, independently of the gratuitous 
services for yet six years of their kidnapped 
victims ? 

Perhaps the Commission might discover nume- 
rous negroes who have fought and bled for Great 
Britain, and w T ho, after defending with their blood 
their inhuman owners, are doomed to pine away 
the remnant of life in that captivity from which 
the slaves saved their masters. 

The slaves, too, who during the late American 
War* flew from their American masters to the 
standard of Great Britain, under promise of 
liberty and protection from the different com- 
manders, and who at the peace were distributed 
to the amount of many hundreds over the Island 
of Trinidad, might perhaps appear as supplicants 
before the Commission, and implore to be released 
from a state of servitude almost as hopeless and 

* See Note 12. 



A COMMISSION. 167 

relentless as that from which they nattered them- 
selves they were for ever emancipated the moment 
they took arms with our forces. 

What would he the sentiments of the Commis- 
sion, if it should find, that to one colony were 
brought two hundred native Africans, intercepted 
by British cruisers on their way to the Havannah ; 
and that they were distributed as slaves among 
the inhabitants by a species of lottery ? 

Should this be proved, what, people of England, 
will foreign countries think of us ? — in what terms 
will posterity record the disgraceful, the barba- 
rous, the iniquitous fact, that in the year of our 
Lord 1835 was witnessed, in the West Indies, 
the spectacle of a lottery, the prizes of which, 
distributed by the governor, were the bones, blood, 
and sinews of human beings ? 

If the Commission directed its inquiries as 
to what was the eventual lot of these unhappy 
Africans, rescued from slavery, and consigned to 
bondage, while they were mocked with the name 
of freedom, would it not be shocked if it should 
find that a few short weeks sufficed to display 



168 EFFECTS OF DESPAIR. 

to them the horror of their situation ; that many 
of the forlorn creatures threw themselves into the 
intricacies of the dense forests, there to expire 
from famine, while others sought refuge in the 
huts of their naturalized countrymen, to be torn 
from them, and made to envy the lot of their dead 
and more fortunate comrades ? 

Suppose it should be proved before the Com- 
mission, that many of these Africans, " rescued 
from slavery," were so far from finding the free- 
dom meted out to them a blessing, that they 
preferred liberating themselves therefrom by 
suicide ? That among other instances, some 
discharged soldiers, attracted by the descent of 
numerous birds into a copse near the barracks, 
discovered, hanging to a tree, the lifeless body of 
one of their countrymen, who had been often heard 
to exclaim, " Buckra country no good !" almost 
the only English he had ever learnt ? 

"In a moment of despair," to employ the 
words of the eloquent editor of the " Colonial 
Observer," " the African had determined to tear 
himself from the vultures of the earth, and yield 






MURDERS OF NEGROES. 169 

his body to the less rapacious vultures of the air, 
rather than again subject his proud heart to the 
treatment it had undergone! 

If the Commission examined how far the slaves 
were protected by the different authorities,* who 
knows, but that in one island, and in one parti- 
cular district of that island, it would hear that 
the individual who, ex officio, was coroner, had 
never once, during a period of twelve years, ful- 
filled that important duty, and that murders of 
negroes, uninquired into, and unatoned for, were 
of no uncommon occurrence ? 

And while murderers, because they boasted of 
European lineage, were permitted to prowl about 
in search for fresh victims, who knows but the 
Commission might rake up from the archives of 
the court, cases of poor ignorant, unlettered blacks, 
being inexorably consigned to the gibbet for what 
the colonial law-makers and law-breakers might 
in their wisdom term coining; that while a white 
man was more than suspected of being connected 
with one of the murders hereafter detailed, and 

* See Note 13. 



170 FRENCH COMMISSION. 

no inquiry instituted, a disbanded black soldier 
was condemned to, and suffered death, for manu- 
facturing a few tin half-bitts ? * 

Should these things be proved, to whom should 
"compensation" be given — the European or 
the African ? 

I will not speculate on what other frightful 
practices a Commission, composed of firm, im- 
partial, disinterested men, might bring to light: 
even I, perhaps, have not a full conception of the 
atrocities yet concealed. 

I will therefore conclude this chapter with one 
extract from the proceedings of the French Com- 
mission, altogether an official document, not to 
be rebutted; and if deeds were perpetrated in 
one island, which the mind of man could have 
scarcely believed possible without a too awfully 
ample testimony, why should we not tremble lest 
similar may have been performed in other colonies, 
(although our own,) where assuredly the system 
of government is not perfect? 

* Previously to his being launched into eternity his head was 
besprinkled with the waters of baptism ! 



AN OFFICIAL DOCUMENT. 171 

" La Commission d'Enquete qui avait pour 
objet de rechercher la cause des desordres qui 
s'etaient manifestos en Fevrier dernier a la Mar- 
tinique a eu lieu de se convaincre que les esclaves 
n'avaient pas voulu a la colonie autant de mal 
que leur en font eprouver chaque jour certains 
habitans. Plus de cent temoins lui ont appris 
qu'un gereur avait donne deux cents coups de 
fouet a un esclave de 60 ans : qu'il avait enferme 
douze malheureux dans un cachot ou cinq auraient 
a peine ete a l'aise, et qu'il avait eu l'horrible 
precaution d'en faire maconner toutes les ouver- 
tures pour empecher les cris d'une negresse en- 
ceinte et qui etouffait, de parvenir a ses oreilles. 

(t Elle a decouvert l'endroit secret ou un negre 
de seize ans avait ete enterre apres un supplice 
inoui: attache sur une echelle, expose a la cba- 
leur du soleil, il avait recu 25 coups de fouet 
toute la journee, et de demie beure en demie 
heure ; mis a terre pendant la nuit, mais toujours 
crucifie, les crabes lui avaient devore les parties 
sexuelles ! Epouvantable mutilation ! qui fut pour 
cet enfant le coup de grace qu'on lui avait refuse. 
i2 



172 FRENCH COMMISSION. 

" Ces faits sont tellement horribles que l'ima- 
gination se refaserait a, les croire, s'ils n'etaient 
consignes ainsi que beaucoup d'autres dans un 
rapport du President de la Commission d'Enquete 
a M. le Directeur des Colonies en date du 
S Octobre 1831." 



HISTORY OF A BLACK. 173 



CHAPTER X. 



Curious History of a Black Man — His Remarks on the Colonial 
System in the Island of Trinidad. 



The following account, of what I may term the 
extraordinary life and adventures of a black man, 
named John McDonald, cannot fail of interesting 
the reader, while it forcibly illustrates many of 
my preceding descriptions. Almost the very 
words of the poor fellow are here given. I have, 
moreover, repeatedly conversed with, and cross- 
examined him in the strictest manner, without 
the power of detecting any discrepancies in his 
statements. 

" I was born," said he, " about the year 1787, 
in Grenada, of slave parents, who left me an 



174 CUllIOUS HISTORY OF 

orphan at an early age. During the brigand war, 
when the black people were assisted by Victor 
Hughes and the French Government to obtain, 
by unjustifiable means, those rights which the 
British nation has compelled the slavers to grant 
us, my master, Mr. Clozier, a Frenchman, joined 
the rebels ; and being afterwards taken, was hung 
by Governor Green, and his property confiscated 
to the king. Of course, I became free. Being 
friendless, I directed my steps towards St. George's 
Barracks, where the 3d Foot (or Buffs) was quar- 
tered, and having attracted the notice of Colonel 
M'Donald, its commanding officer, was taken by 
him into his house as his servant. 

I accompanied the colonel to St. Lucia, and 
got my ancle broken by a musket-shot during the 
operations attending its capture. When Sir 
Ralph Abercrombie took the left wing of the 
Buffs to the capture of Trinidad, I remained with 
the colonel at Barbadoes, which was garrisoned 
by the right wing. I afterwards accompanied the 
expedition to Puerto Rico, then to Jamaica, 
thence to the Bay of Honduras, to the Bahamas, 



A BLACK MAN. 175 

and was likewise in Egypt with Sir Ralph 
Abercrombie. 

" I then accompanied Colonel M f Donald to 
Holland, and travelled with him for a short time 
into Prussia ; and afterwards embarked for Por- 
tugal, and served two years, or so, under the 
Duke of Wellington and Sir John Moore, « — al- 
ways as confidential servant to Colonel M'Donald. 
Duty took the Colonel to Madras : I again fol- 
lowed him, and returned with him to Europe. 

" I now felt anxious to revisit Grenada, and 
see if any of my family were alive, as I had fre- 
quently told Colonel M'Donald: for although it 
has always been the aim of the slavers to try and 
convince the British people that we are vile and 
ungrateful, and more like brutes than any thing 
else, in order that they may work us as they do 
like beasts of burden, and rob us of our daily 
labour ; yet a black possesses as correct a feeling 
of God, and is blessed with a heart as alive to 
acts of charity, as the unlettered white man of his 
class ; and I challenge any slaver, atheist, or what- 
ever he may be, to disprove the fact. 



176 CURIOUS HISTORY OF 

" Well, Colonel M'Donald acceded to my wislies 
to proceed to my native land, and procured me a 
situation as servant to Captain Ross, R. N., of 
the Hawk sloop-of-war, with the agreement that 
Captain Ross should bring me home, or send me 
back, .when I had accomplished the object which 
I had in view. The Hawk anchored off Barba- 
does ; and taking on board a detachment of the 
Royal Artillery, commanded by Major Prevost 
(who died in this island), landed half of them at 
Grenada. A Lieutenant Adams, of the Artillery, 
whom I had attended during the passage, finding 
me such a capital servant, requested Captain Ross 
to allow me to remain with him : Captain Ross 
agreed for a few days, till he had suited himself 
with one, and I went ashore. 

" The next day the mail-boat came in, and 
reported a French frigate on the windward coast 
of the island; and the Hawk put to sea, since 
which I have heard nothing of her ; I believe she 
was lost in a white squall. Shortly afterwards 
Lieutenant Adams was ordered to return to Bar- 
badoes, and left me with Captain Gilbert, of the 



A BLACK MAN. 177 

Royal Artillery. He would have taken me with 
him, 'but, as he said, Captain Ross had only 
lent me for a few days, perhaps he would return 
during my absence, and be displeased.' Captain 
Gilbert went to England about two years after- 
wards, leaving me unemployed in Grenada. 

" After remaining in an unmolested state for 
three months, I was apprehended as a runaway, 
(such is the law among these free Britons,) and 
lodged in the cage for three months, ' till my 
owner should be found,' which of course not 
happening, I was sold for my jail expenses: 
such is the humane colonist, the hospitable, the 
generous slaver ! Oh, how little do the British 
people know these men! but they are beginning 
to be acquainted with them now that their day 
is set : every dog has his day. Well, one Francis 
Robinson, who traded in a vessel to and from 
Grenada to Trinidad, bought me : he was after- 
wards Chief of Police in this island, and died 
here. On his death I was sold by Judge Bigge, 
according to Spanish law, to John Dawson Parke, 
who being second in a fatal duel, his property was 
i 3 



178 CURIOUS HISTORY OF 

confiscated. Of course, I became free. His 
brother, Benjamin Parke, took me into his house, 
hut always told me I was as free as he was. He 
died two years afterwards, and I then was free 
by having no master ; and remained so for three 
years. One Mr. Percy, who is now here, then 
sent a policeman for me, and put me into jail ; 
and I was sold by Mr. Jones, the Escribano, for 
a debt due to Captain Percy (about 250 dollars) 
by Mr. Dawson Parke, contracted in America. 
A Guinea negress, called Zabet, bought me. 
And here am I, free by right so many times, who 
have often conversed with, and waited on, the 
lamented Mr. Wilberforce, at Greenwich : the 
servant to Colonel M'Donald : I, the English 
soldier, and wounded in the service of England : 
here am I, the slave of a French African ! 

" Soon after this I went to the Protector of Slave's 
Office to state all these circumstances, and to claim 
my liberty, but I was told I had no proofs: al- 
though Rose, a slave whom Mrs. Gloster (the 
Protector's wife) had taken with her to England 
under promise of freedom, and which she refused 



A BLACK MAN, 179 

to give her on her return to the "West Indies, and 
what is worse, sold her ; yet this same Rose ob- 
tained immediately her liberty when she applied 
the day after me. I must say, Mr. Hammet, the 
assistant Protector, was inclined to serve me, and 
told me he believed my statement, and the cer- 
tificate signed by Mr. Ryan, (formerly of the 
Buffs, and whom I met as band-master of one of 
the battalions of the 60th Regiment in Grenada,) 
stating my having accompanied my master in 
Europe and Asia ; yet he was overruled by Mr. 
Gloster, and as we cannot read or write it is use- 
less to complain. Some, such as Edward of the 
Terre Promise, Ben of Malgre Tout, and various 
others, are similarly situated with me, and if any 
of us come up to complain of cruelty from our 
owners, we are sent back with a pass, which we 
think is an order for our oppressor to give an ac- 
count of his conduct, but as soon as we arrive we 
are put into the iron stocks, and then flogged on 
the following day by order of the commandant. 
If we again complain, we are told that the com- 



180 CURIOUS HISTORY OP 

mandant did perfectly right, as we had no business 
to come away without a pass ; when it is notorious 
the slavers always refuse us passes, nevertheless 
they can always say we never asked for one, and 
can always find persons to swear, through fear of 
punishment, just as they wish. In short, the 
slavers now do with us just as they like ; they tear 
up the Protector's letters and passes, curse them, 
and flog us worse than ever, being well assured 
that they will never be called to account for it, as 
they know the Governor has no leaning towards 
liberal opinions ; indeed they make a boast of it, 
and tell their slaves so when they go to complain, 
and we soon discover that our masters have not 
mistaken their man, nor reckoned without their 
host. Indeed, excepting Mr. Hammet, the rest of 
the Protectors are afraid of the planters, whose 
agents drag us out of the Attorney - General's 
Office, beat us, and yet nothing is said. When 
we come up to town, should the Protectors be 
absent, we are apprehended as runaways, put into 
the tread-mill, sent down to the estates, and then 



A BLACK MAN. 181 

i, to deter us from coming up to make com- 
plaints. Frequently too, when we imagine that 
our unjust punishment has been examined into 5 
and justice will be dealt out to our oppressors^ the 
agent takes us into his store, and nogs us with the 
cat, for daring to complain. On most of the 
estates we are punished when there is no witness 
brought forward by us ; but how is it possible for 
us to prove any thing but by circumstantial evi- 
dence, and how in our forlorn situation can we 
disprove the statements of a master ? The conse- 
quence is, that the masters gratify their rage with 
impunity, and there are many of us who have 
carried bruises and cuts upon our bodies, which 
have been refused as evidence ; and thus, afraid 
to return, from a conviction that our complaints 
will be revenged by the masters, we run into the 
woods, like the Indians of St. Domingo. Thus 
we drag on our wretched existence ; and were it 
not for Judge Scotland, whom God bless, and some 
few humane gentlemen, who openly condemn 
these barbarities, Heaven knows what further 



182 CURIOUS HISTORY OF 

would become of us ; for since our oppressors 
know that we are to be half-free in August next, 
their rage, which always falls on our bodies, knows 
no bounds. Oh, if I could describe all the mi- 
series I have seen and endured in Trinidad! — 
but it would take up too much time. Do, there- 
fore, exert yourself, and let me depart from this 
accursed restraint, by which I am robbed of my 
labour as if I were a felon in jail! Do help a 
poor creature, suffering the ignominious and 
cruel yoke of slavery ; and Grod will reward you 
in the other world, and I will pray for you in 
this !" 

Such is the plain, unvarnished tale of John 
M'Donald, a black; the observations and rea- 
sonings are altogether his own. I might have 
rendered them more interesting by placing the 
incidents in a connected form, and by translating 
them into the negro idiom, but I did not wish 
to have recourse to what might seem an artifice 
to gain attention. I shall simply observe, in 
conclusion, that I believe the above facts were 



A BLACK MAN. 183 

eventually embodied into a petition to the Colo- 
nial Secretary by the humane and enlightened 
gentleman from whom I originally heard them, 
and that he succeeded in rescuing the unfortunate 
supplicant from bondage. 



184< LAWLESSNESS OF 



CHAPTER XL 



Lawlessness of the Colonists — Curious Instance— Danger attend- 
ing Liberalism — Examples— Mr. Buxton — Admiral Fleeming — 
The Militia— The Press— Judge Scotland — A worthy Tory— 
The entire Colonial System exposed in the Case of Mr. Young 
Anderson — Hint to the Whigs-- Anecdote. 



Long before this, the reader will have perceived 
but too clearly, that not only are atrocities 
exercised with impunity* on those whose mis- 
fortune it is to have been born with a black 
skin, but that the miscreants so exercising them 

* "lam forced to declare that acts of cruelty are committed in 
our colonies without any punishment, or even censure falling on 
the offender. There is extreme difficulty in bringing to justice the 
perpetrators of cruel deeds in the West Indies. The laws are in 
most cases defective in affording protection to the bondsman."— 
Archdeacon Elliot, of Barbadoes. 



THE COLONISTS. 185 

are held almost perfectly harmless in the world's 
opinion; for should it so happen that the cir- 
cumstances of a case are so extraordinarily flagi- 
tious as to compel a judicial investigation, and 
that a verdict of " guilty" ensues, which will 
be followed in all likelihood only by a nominal 
penalty, the individual attacked is at once re- 
garded as a martyr in a holy cause, a victim to 
cant and methodism; addresses are got up, friends 
rally around, and every testimony is afforded of his 
increased worth in the estimation of his brother 
colonists. 

There is not perhaps a more certain method of 
attaining distinction than by signalizing oneself in 
a crusade against the advocates for the abolition 
of slavery. However infamous and iniquitous 
(according to the sense in which these expressions 
are understood in European society) may be the 
means employed, they are regarded in a widely 
opposite light in the colonies. Ruffianly assaults, 
and even murder, will be hailed as effects of the 
purest patriotism, while robbery and burglary will 
be emblazoned as deeds worthy of a hero. A 



186 LAWLESSNESS OF 

remarkable example of this was brought to my 
knowledge very shortly after my arrival in the 
West Indies : the case, according to what will 
perhaps be considered my narrow-minded ideas, is 
one of the most lawless and disgraceful ever wit- 
nessed in a community laying the remotest claim 
to civilization ; I doubt, indeed, whether a country 
inhabited altogether by savages, or overrun by 
banditti, could record any thing more suitable to 
the character of the one and the other. 

In alluding to some of the facts which a Commission 
might bring to light, I hinted at the possibility 
of its discovering that a vast number of negroes 
still retained in slavery, had been illegally im- 
ported. Upon this suspicion being originally 
whispered, several humane individuals instituted an 
inquiry as to its grounds, the result of which was, 
that many informations on the subject of breaches of 
the Consolidated Slave Act, together with impor- 
tant documents requisite to substantiate them, 
were lodged at the Vice-Admiralty Court. Great 
was the consternation among the slave-party. To 
the certainty of losing the apprenticeship of these 



THE COLONISTS. 187 

negroes, with all claim to compensation, was added 
the reasonable apprehension that charges even of 
piracy might eventually be followed up. Con- 
scious of guilt, they dared not abide a judicial 
investigation ; and knowing it to be impossible to 
cajole or intimidate the upright judge, before 
whom the cases were to be brought, an appeal to 
open force was decided upon. 

The preliminaries being arranged, and leaders 
chosen, a band of these conspirators, regularly 
armed, assembled in the dead of night before the 
Admiralty Court, and having disposed their force 
so as to prevent any obstruction which might be 
offered, literally proceeded in due form to besiege 
the Court House, and having effected an entry, 
carried off in triumph the whole of the proceedings 
pending before the tribunal on the subject of the 
piratical importations in question.* 

At the period this outrage was committed, the 
situation of Attorney -General was singularly 
enough held by an independent, determined man, 
and he having received information as to the per- 

* See Note 14. 



188 LAWLESSNESS OF 

petrators, issued warrants to search the premises 
occupied by the partners of a mercantile establish- 
ment, of which a Member of Council was the head. 
These people having received notice of the in- 
tended search, collected their friends, and effectu- 
ally thwarted the police who were charged with 
the execution of the warrant. They permitted 
every room to be searched but one, and in that the 
papers were hid under one of the boards of the 
floor, which had been ripped up, and then nailed 
down to conceal them. Sir Lewis Grant, who 
was Governor, hearing of the inefficiency and 
timidity of the police, sent a requisition for a 
military party from the 19th regiment, to be in 
readiness to aid the magistrates; and such was the 
violence of the lawless rabble, that a disposition 
actually existed to oppose force by force, and 
deputies offered the services of volunteers from 
two of the militia corps. The idea, however, of 
enacting " three days" in the streets of the Port of 
Spain was not persisted in, when some half dozen 
red coats made their appearance ; the threatening 
cloud was dissipated in smoke, and the suspected 



THE COLONISTS. 



189 



burglars were compelled to enter into recogni- 
zances to appear when called upon. And these 
people, who to robbery were prepared to add mur- 
der, who in some countries would have died upon 
the gibbet, in others have been consigned for life to 
the galleys, and in all, save the one of which I am 
treating, stamped with the blackest infamy, here 
became rising characters, amidst the greetings and 
applause of the respectable part of the community, 
as the planters and their supporters are designated. 
With the same violence with which the colonists 
aid and protect each other on all questions arising 
out of their slavery politics, do they traduce and 
persecute those whom they believe adverse to their 
views. No man taking part in favour of the 
negro, can escape odium and ridicule in their 
bitterest forms. Sharpe, Wilberforce, Buxton, 
Lushington, Stephens, and, last not least, Admiral 
Fleeming, — what volumes of abuse have been, and 
still continue to be, lavished upon them ! they have 
been the means of enriching a hundred editors, 
who have had the tact to dedicate their columns 
to the task of vilifying them. I may take this 



190 DANGER ATTENDING 

opportunity of remarking, however, that the enmity 
would appear more deadly towards Mr. Buxton 
and Admiral Fleeming, than even that entertained 
for the others ; and I will undertake to say, that 
were these two, whose names will be coeval with 
the duration of the western hemisphere, and will 
be handed down to posterity as those of men who 
remained faithful when so many proved false, who 
surpassed the zealous, even among the zealous, in 
the work of rescuing the negro from bondage; 
were these two, to arrive in any island in the West 
Indies, and venture to move out unsurrounded by 
a guard of those grateful beings, who night and day 
implore blessings upon them, they would inevitably 
be torn to pieces by the Europeans, who would 
all vie as to who could most mangle their bodies. 
I can solemnly affirm that I have repeatedly heard 
respectable colonial gentlemen run on in that 
strain ; indeed, they do so on all occasions where 
the two persons mentioned are the subjects of dis- 
course, usually concluding with declarations of the 
willingness with which they would lay down their 
lives, could they but first wreak their vengeance 



LIBERALISM, 191 

on Fowel Buxton and Admiral Fleeming. The 
fiendish malice with which philanthropists are 
looked upon in the colonies, is portrayed in 
numerous pages of Mrs. Carmichael's work ; she 
(unwittingly, perhaps,) seizes every opportunity 
of exhibiting the vile principles of her em- 
ployers, and on this topic alone can her " Do- 
mestic Manners in the West Indies" lay claim to 
fidelity. 

They, however, who reside in the mother 
country, can well afford to view with contempt the 
slanders and attacks of their enemies in the colo- 
nies ; but sad is the lot of those friends to humanity 
whose pursuits compel them to remain where 
humanity is not. He who is imprudent enough 
to express sentiments inimical to the slavery sys- 
tem, becomes at once exposed to the fury of a 
party which is all powerful on the spot. It is 
morally impossible he can avoid destruction. If 
a tradesman, no one deals with him ; his credit is 
cried down, he is quickly a bankrupt. If he holds 
an appointment under government, a cabal is 
formed, charges trumped up, sooner or later he is 



19£ DANGER ATTENDING 

dismissed.* If a lawyer, never will he receive a 
brief from a white person, and wonderful will it 
prove if he be not eventually driven from the 
courts. If a clergyman, he will find himself 
arraigned before the sessions for disseminating 
traitorous doctrines, and assuredly will he hear the 
word " Guilty" pronounced. 

Woe betide the governor of a jail, or a police- 
man, who is suspected of acting with weakness 
(Anglice mercy) towards slaves committed to his 
custody for insubordination, but which insubordi- 
nation he well knows existed only in the imagi- 
nations of the masters : ruin will be the result. 

Let but a protector of slaves act as his title 



* The House of Assembly, at Barbadoes, at their sitting of 
October 16, 1833, called Mr. Le Fevre, the Collector of Customs, 
before them, in consequence of the reports abroad of his having 
given certificates of freedom to certain slaves, who had formerly 
been in England. He replied, that on such persons coming to 
him, he merely gave them a bit of paper, stating, that by the 3d 
clause of the Act of Parliament for the emancipation of slaves, 
" All slaves who have been in England or Ireland previous to the 
passing of the Act, shall be free." 

Mr. Le Fevre declared at the same time to the House, that he 
had no disposition to interfere between the owners and their slaves, 
and that in future, if any slaves should come to him on the subject, 
he would desire them to go about their business t 



LIBERALISM. 193 

would imply he ought, and how long will he 
remain a protector ? 

The lamentable case of Mr. Hammett* will be 
reply sufficient. The colonists, finding him in- 
flexible in the discharge of his duty, that he sifted 
every case of oppression to the bottom, and would 
allow no compromise to be entered into, decided 
that he should be driven from his office. 

Without relaxation, he was summoned to the 
most distant spots ; in sickness or in health he was 
forced to obey the orders which were incessantly 
issuing, at the same time that a combination was 
formed not to supply him with food, shelter, or 
conveyance. He was left altogether to his own 
personal resources. The consequence was, that 

* This gentleman was even reprimanded by Sir G. Hill, for 
his activity in favour of the slaves. 

" I am given to understand," were Sir George's words, " that 
you are too precipitate in your examinations of those slaves who 
claim their liberty by infractions of the statute. I hold in my 
hand a petition, that a witness in the case therein mentioned had 

not been examined, and her evidence went to rebut all 

the evidence in favour of the slave." 

This unexpected slavery address somewhat startled the nephew 
of the good Sir Ralph Woodford ; he, however, proved to the 
Lieutenant-Governor, that the woman's evidence had not only 
been taken, but her deposition confirmed the others. 



194 CASE OF MR. HAMMETT. 

often compelled to go by water to some particular 
district, and sometimes forced to remain in an open 
boat for forty-eight hours, he had generally no 
alternative on landing but to seek repose under 
a tree, the orders of the masters having been so 
peremptory, that even the negroes did not dare 
to invite him to their huts. 

After resting himself, he perhaps liad to pro- 
ceed many miles further, which he was forced to 
do on foot, the same causes operating to deprive 
him of all means of transport. 

The sequel is easily told. He encountered these 
things long and often, borne up by his energetic 
spirit; but it was impossible for human nature 
not eventually to succumb : the schemes of his 
enemies were at length attended with success : poor 
Hammett was removed from his office — removed 
by the hand of death. 

So fully is carried on, in every department, 
the resolve to crush all who may diiFer from the 
great body of the planters, that even the officers 
of militia, who pride themselves on efficiency 
and subordination, ridicule the idea of regular 



THE MILITIA. 195 

troops being required in the colonies, and who 
might therefore be expected, as becomes good 
soldiers, to banish all political feelings and ani- 
mosities when acting together professionally, will 
allow no one to remain in their chivalrous ranks 
who is not a staunch " slaver :" more than this, 
whole bodies of these admirably disciplined officers 
have been known to refuse attendance at parades 
except certain of their members, suspected of 
being tainted with Methodism, were removed 
from the service. More than one instance might 
be produced in illustration of this feeling among 
the colonial military; but, for the present, that 
of Lieutenant-Colonel Prietto, of the island of 
Trinidad, will be sufficient. This gentleman 
commanded, for a length of time, the St. Joseph's 
Light Infantry Battalion, and enjoyed the esteem of 
the late Sir Ralph "Woodford for the superior state 
of discipline in which he preserved his corps. He 
was, however, indiscreet enough, in private society, 
to declare himself averse to the state of slavery in 
which the negroes are retained in Trinidad, and 
favourable to their admission to the enjoyment of 
k 2 



196 THE PRESS. 

their natural rights. Will it be credited, that 
these principles were not only pronounced subver- 
sive of colonial prosperity, but were deemed so fit 
subject of a Military Court of Inquiry, that the 
Lieutenant-Governor literally ordered one to exa- 
mine into the conduct of Colonel Prietto, — appoint- 
ing a planter and slave-owner President ! Thus, 
principles which would reflect honour on a person 
in Europe, subject him in the West Indies to be 
tried and degraded. 

Exposure of these shameful things is, in a great 
degree, prevented by the manner in which the press 
is shackled in the colonies : an individual must 
possess no common share of nerve and daring to 
attempt to set up a newspaper on liberal prin- 
ciples. Not very long since, the life of the editor 
of the "Jamaica Courant" was sought after with 
demoniac rage ; the" monstrous crime of which he 
had been guilty consisted in advocating emanci- 
pation ; it was the same with Loving of Antigua, 
with Anderson of Trinidad, and many others of 
different islands. No journal advocating the cause 
of humanity can continue long : all advertisements 



THE PRESS. 197 

are withheld from it — the merchants, or store- 
keepers, will not, at any price, supply paper — they 
will combine together on hearing that a vessel 
has arrived with some, and purchase up the 
whole ; by which the editor is repeatedly forced 
either to put off his publication altogether, 
or to send it forth on the coarsest description o* 
material. 

He is likewise attacked and injured in nu- 
merous other ways ; and if he meet assertions 
by a simple statement of facts, or bring forth 
argument in reply to the invective with which he 
is assailed, he is either condemned as a libeller, or 
exposed to brutal assaults, for which no court will 
grant redress. On the other hand, the newspapers 
supporting the politics of the opposite party are 
countenanced in every form ; their subscribers 
are composed of all the "respectability" of the 
colony, — every attorney's scrub wields a pen in 
their columns, — while the attorney himself gives 
an unfee'd opinion as to "how far it be prudent to 
go:" gifts, places, and dinners, crowd upon the 
editors, who, in return, according to their instruc- 



198 THE PRESS. 

tions, defend all that is base and iniquitous, and 
calumniate all who are known for liberality or 
worth. 

In the case of the attack made upon the Ad- 
miralty Court, I have mentioned that the perpe- 
trators well knew that the judge was not to be 
intimidated: he was in consequence marked as 
a future victim. Under any circumstances the 
colonists would have been averse to a man like 
Judge Scotland. His uprightness, his purity of 
mind, his very talents, were so many crimes in 
their eyes ; but when they found that he was 
resolved to deal impartially between man and 
man, without regard to the colour of his skin, 
their rage passed all bounds. Their organ, 
the " Port of Spain Gazette," was directed to 
spit its venom on him. 

Well did that journal, the vilest that ever dis- 
graced the press of any country — vile for its prin- 
ciples — vile for its ignorance — and doubly vile for 
the worthlessness of its conductors and supporters, 
— well did it perform the task. In less than five 
months it published against him the extraordinary 



JUDGE SCOTLAND. 199 

number of thirty libels, all of the most scandalous 
nature. The Judge long regarded them with 
contempt ; but at length, when further forbear- 
ance, considering his high and important office, 
would have been culpable, he resolutely entered 
an action in the tribunals of the colony; and a 
painful sight it was, to behold this good and just 
man compelled to resign his seat, and descend 
from the bench, to crave that justice as a common 
suitor, which he himself had been deputed by his 
sovereign to administer to others, in a degraded 
colony. 

No mercy could be showed to him who thus 
dared to withstand the public clamour, and appeal 
to the law for redress; his very life was threat- 
ened, and in danger ; and nothing would have 
saved him from the attacks of his enemies, but the 
knowledge that the free, coloured and black, popu- 
lation, were ready to fly to his rescue. "Whilst he 
sat serene and unmoved, one party was armed for 
his assassination, and another, and fortunately 
the more numerous, was equally prepared to shed 
the heart's blood of the conspirators on the first 



200 A WORTHY TORY. 

moment ! — and this, under the British government 
in the year 1833 ! 

The result, however, is perhaps even more extra- 
ordinary.* When the case in question was called 
for trial, it was discovered that the records, together 
with an iron chest which contained them, had 
been abstracted from the court-house the night 
before.f 

Had I not seen the official documents connected 
therewith, (copies of which are annexed,) I should 



* See Note 15. 

t The trial, notwithstanding, did take place at a future day. The 
following evidence was given by one of the witnesses : — 

" E. L. Joseph states : — The Articles in question created very 
considerable sensation. I recollect a surmise about town some 
time since, to the effect, that Mr. Jackson was the writer, but the 
editor had informed him, that he (the editor) was the author, al- 
though they had been submitted to Mr. Jackson for his professional 
opinion ; for which a fee of one doubloon was paid." 

Mr. Jackson was the Solicitor- General of the Colony. The 
outraged and maligned plaintiff was the Chief Judge ! 

In justice, I must say, Mr. Jackson denied this, although he 
added, " that the Port of Spain Gazette was a valuable paper, par- 
ticularly at this crisis of affairs." 

A Solicitor-General terming "valuable" a paper in direct and 
insulting opposition to that government under which he holds office ! 
and this, too, in a public court ! 

Such are the gratitude and support the Whigs invariably receive 
for their merciful, but ill-timed forbearance towards Tory under- 
lings. 



MR. YOUNG ANDERSON. 201 

have hesitated to relate such acts of lawlessness, 
feeling that they are almost beyond the belief of those, 
who, not having had personal experience among the 
slavery advocates, are unable to form the remotest 
conception of the lengths to which they will proceed 
in all relating to their favourite system. At the risk 
of appearing prolix, I must continue my illustrations 
of the persecutions meted out by them to their 
political opponents. To one instance, in parti- 
cular, I am especially anxious to direct the 
attention of the reader, as independently of its 
exhibiting, in some very minute points, the orga- 
nization existing among the colonists, the injured 
man to whom it relates has made severe per- 
sonal sacrifices in the cause of negro emancipation 
and is well entitled to the sympathy and support 
of all who have fought on the same side. I 
allude to Mr. Young Anderson, of the Island of 
Trinidad, who, although a West Indian, has dis- 
tinguished himself as a philanthropist in the 
widest sense of the term. His family having 
been long settled in that colony, and maintained 
a high and honourable reputation, he determined 
k 3 



202 MR. YOUNG ANDERSON 

to fix himself there, and follow the profession of 
the law, for which a superior education, perfected 
in England and France, had rendered him admi- 
rably qualified. 

Unfortunately for his worldly prospects, he 
found himself unable to cloak his feelings, when 
he began to perceive the abominations hourly 
practised towards the slave in the island to which 
his adverse star had led him, and where, in a 
greater degree, perhaps, than even in the other 
colonies, a system had long been encouraged and 
upheld, demoralizing alike to the oppressor and 
his victim. He raised his voice in the very den 
of slavery. The planters started with dismay ; the 
poor bondsman, bending under the weight of 
his chains, looked up with hope to his cou- 
rageous advocate. Finding that something more 
was requisite than his simple voice and example, 
Mr. Anderson, at great expense to himself, esta- 
blished the best conducted journal which for 
many years had appeared in the West Indies; 
and while he mildly but firmly exposed the wrongs 
of the negroes, he, at the same time, in treatises 



THREATENED WITH LYNCH-LAW. 203 

breathing the spirit of the purest benevolence, 
pointed out to the planters the line of proceed- 
ing, which, in the actual state of public feeling, it 
behoved them to adopt, whether as good men, or as 
wise men. As uselessly might he have spoken to 
the winds ! Every form of abuse was lavished upon 
him, but he swerved not. Orators were brought 
into the lists against him — they quailed before 
the eloquence of truth. Disgusting pamphlets 
were circulated, the writers of which, whether the 
bloated dandy of Port of Spain, or the itinerant 
mountebank from Glasgow, alike grovelled in the 
mire under his literary lash. 

They now had recourse to menaces of personal 
violence, and as Lynch-law is almost the only law 
recognised by these people, he was publicly told to 
prepare for its application to himself, unless he 
would forthwith desist from his advocacy of the 
blacks. " I am well aware," was his reply, " that 
I am not safe in this island from the midnight 
assassin, nor may I prevail against a ruffianly 
attack, or the force of numbers; but should I 
perish a victim to my political opinions, under the 



204 MR. YOUNG ANDERSON. 

bludgeons of the ' friends' to the ' liberty of the 
press,' my fate will be commiserated by the wise 
and good of the island, and my fall will be 



They had good grounds for believing that the 
latter prognostic would be amply verified, and 
finding him fearless, his enemies varied their 
tactics. 

A cocoa and spice plantation were offered to 
him by a certain Honourable Member of Council 
on easy conditions, tantamount to a free gift, pro- 
vided he would relinquish his pen. A situation 
out of the island was tendered by official authority. 

He spurned the bribes, and pursued his right- 
eous path, until by the passing of the Emancipa- 
tion Act he witnessed the success of the cause for 
which he had so nobly, so disinterestedly striven, 
and which at his hands had received no inconsider- 
able aid. 

In the mean time, however, his opponents, no 
longer hoping to corrupt his integrity, sought to 
throw discredit upon his proceedings by excluding 
him from the society of the place ; and the officers 



CONSPIRED AGAINST BY THE MILITIA. 205 

of the militia corps, in which he held the rank 
of senior Captain, entered into a conspiracy to 
remove him. A letter was written to the Com- 
manding Officer, and transmitted to Major- General 
Sir Lewis Grant, the Governor, in which Mr. 
Anderson's editorial advice to the coloured inhabi- 
tants not to join in the proposed resistance to the 
King's authority, was designated as an attempt to 
renew and perpetuate those differences between 
the various classes of the free population, which 
every good subject should be anxious to allay, and 
to bury in oblivion ; whilst his recommendation to 
the planters to ameliorate the condition of their 
slaves was characterised as a total disregard for 
the interests of the community in advocating 
principles subversive of the existing state of 
society in the "West Indies. 

This extraordinary military denunciation con- 
cluded with an open avowal on the part of the con- 
spirators, not to appear on parade if Mr. Anderson 
were permitted to remain in the regiment. 

The Governor, after observing that the mode of 
treating such mutinous conduct was obvious, and 



206 SIR lewis grant's opinion. 

that nothing but his immediate departure from the 
colony prevented him from carrying his notion 
into effect, thus recorded in a militia general order 
his opinion of Mr. Anderson: — 

" In justice to Captain Anderson, and in oppo- 
sition to the representations of people leagued 
against him, His Excellency must express his 
fullest satisfaction with Captain x\nderson's con- 
duct and character as an officer and a gentleman, 
and as a person anxious for the welfare of the 
colony, and the good of all the inhabitants. He 
has, therefore, the Governor's thanks, and a claim 
to approbation ; and His Excellency is pleased 
to confer on him, in addition to his regimental 
rank, the rank of Major by brevet in the militia 
forces." 

Nothing surely could be more honourable and 
conclusive. Yet will it be believed, that the 
vessel which was to bear Sir Lewis Grant to 
England, had scarcely moved from the harbour, 
when his successor, a civilian, terrified by the 
frantic violence of the colonists, with indecent 
haste neutralized the above order, and left Mr. 



CONDUCT OF SIR G. HILL. 207 

Anderson exposed to the malignity and persecution 
of the faction, which though scotched in some 
degree by General Grant, again ventured to 
rear its crest on the arrival of Sir George Hill, 
who at once entered heart and soul into the 
views of the now dominant party, and exhibited 
the principles by which he intended to be swayed, 
in the repeated declaration that no individual who 
associated with Mr. Anderson, (the man, mark, 
whom his predecessor had stated to be " anxious 
for the welfare of the colony, and the good of all 
the inhabitants,") should ever thrive while he 
remained Governor of Trinidad. Up to this de- 
claration has he inflexibly acted. 

Let Mr. Anderson, however, bear up against 
the persecutions to which he is still subjected ; let 
him not abandon himself to despair; a brighter 
era will yet dawn upon him and the colony 
which he has so faithfully served. 

The Whigs must have already begun to learn, 
that the appointment to, or retaining in office 
their political foes, those whose study and exer- 
tions are for their utter annihilation as a party, 



208 HINTS TO THE WHIGS. 

is not the method to secure the success of their 
humane and enlightened views. It is to be hoped 
they may soon find themselves sufficiently power- 
ful to be enabled to " cast out " from every office 
in the state, those whose sole claims to distinction 
consist in their close connexion with Tory leaders. 
When this day of glory shall arrive, giving joy to 
millions, and spreading its effects far and wide, 
one ray will assuredly reach the distant isles of 
which I am writing. None but upright rulers 
will then be sent thither ; and all those similarly 
situated with him, whose case I have brought 
before the public, will find their wrongs redressed, 
and what will be more prized by their generous 
minds, their talents called into requisition for the 
public weal. 

One more instance of the danger of exhibiting 
humane feelings, and we will turn to the consider- 
ation of other matters. 

An officer of the 25th Regiment was riding one 
day at Barbadoes, when on a sudden his attention 
was roused by piercing shrieks issuing from a 
neighbouring grove. He galloped to the spot, 



ANECDOTE. 209 

and there beheld tied to a tree, a young female 
slave, on whose naked body a ruffian was inflicting 
lashes with a cart whip. Too much shocked to 
reflect on what might be the consequences of his 
interposition in so delicate an affair, he sprang 
from his horse, and placing himself between the 
tortured girl and her torturer, dared him to pro- 
ceed with his employment. 

The man escaped with rapidity, and preferred a 
complaint of the manner in which he had been im- 
peded in the lawful discharge of his duty. The 
commotion produced is indescribable. The plan- 
ters talked of the affair as a daring and unconsti- 
tutional interference of the military with the 
civil power; and at first determined to frame a 
motion thereon in the House of Assembly, and 
to transmit a full statement to His Majesty's 
Government. 

The excitement having a little subsided, certain 
" potent, grave, and reverend seignors," assembled 
in conclave to deliberate calmly as to the steps to 
be adopted at this awful crisis. By some it was 



210 ANECDOTE* 

gently hinted that the officer should be " called 
out" by the planters in succession, until a well- 
aimed shot should lay him low. 

This was highly approved of, but as the first 
step is always the most difficult, so none was found 
in this instance to set the example of taking it. 

Another plan was then proposed, namely, that 
a deputation should wait on the general command- 
ing the forces, requiring his excellency to arraign 
the culprit before a court martial, for conduct un- 
becoming the character of an officer and a gentle- 
man, in having prevented the due hacking of the 
flesh of a female slave, as ordered by her owner, 
a Barbadoes planter. 

This likewise fell to the ground, one of the 
meeting expressing a doubt, from his knowledge of 
the perverseness of the military " in these days," 
whether they might not stamp the proceeding with 
epithets the very reverse of those employed by 
themselves — the planters. At length they came to 
an arrangement, and certes an efficient one, that 
the officer should be summoned before a bench of 



ANECDOTE. 211 

magistrates of their own body, where having re- 
ceived a fair proportion of planterian magisterial 
vituperation, he was mulcted in a penalty of one 

HUNDRED POUNDS. 



212 PLANS TO OBTAIN 



CHAPTER XII. 

Plans to obtain White Slaves — Carried into Effect — Portuguese 
Victims — Fayal and Madeira — The frightful Condition of the 
cajoled — Havoc among them — A Voice from the Dead — Appeal 
to Portugal — Solemn Warning to Emigrants. 

The reader in all likelihood will now begin to 
breathe more freely, hoping that the catalogue of 
colonial iniquities must at length be exhausted, 
and that he may proceed without having to wend 
his painful way through paths strewed at every step 
with horrors. 

Unfeigned would be my joy if such were the 
case ; but, alas ! the hope is not to be realized ; 
deeds yet remain to be exhibited which, if not of 
a more aggravated nature than many already re- 
corded, are still, from peculiar circumstances, more 
disgraceful to us as a civilized people, more damn- 
ing as a Christian one. 



WHITE SLAVES. 218 

The public mind having for so many years been 
familiarized with the existence of slavery in 
the colonies, I can well understand how a large 
number of my countrymen have brought them- 
selves steadfastly to believe that it is perfectly 
conformable to the laws of nature that the Black 
should be the bondsman of the White. 

I can equally comprehend how many good and 
talented men, and virtuous patriots, while detest- 
ing in the abstract the system of slavery, yet re- 
gard its continuance as requisite for the success of 
our commerce, and tending highly in many other 
respects to our national prosperity. 

With those who hold these sentiments, I am not 
on the present occasion disposed to enter into a 
discussion ; but I presume I do not err in the sup- 
position, that such sentiments are based on the 
principle that in all cases the slaves must be 
black; for I cannot but believe that the idea of 
kidnapping and selling Europeans into bondage 
would be repelled in England by all classes with- 
out distinction, however opposite the political bias 
of each ; and that the wretch with whom it should 



214 PLANS TO OBTAIN 

originate, would for ever be stamped with the 
curse and loathing of an indignant nation. 

With what sensation then will the public receive 
the announcement, that no sooner was the Abolition 
Act finally passed, and that in despite of every 
intrigue many of its clauses could no longer be 
prevented coming into force, than the planters 
determined to supply by the labour of white men 
the loss of those services which they began to 
apprehend they might no longer have the power 
of compelling the negroes to render ? 

Yes, people of England, no sooner had you, 
through your representatives in a Reformed Par- 
liament, spoken out in a voice not to be resisted, 
and the edict in consequence had gone forth, that 
negro slavery should cease to exist in your 
colonies, than plans and speculations were entered 
into to supply the plantations with white slaves ! 
I acknowledge this to be a frightful, an appalling 
accusation. I pledge myself, however, to prove 
its truth to the minutest point ; to bring home to 
the conviction of the most sceptical — that Euro- 
peans are now languishing in one island of the 



WHITE SLAVES. 215 

"West Indies, in a state of slavery as absolute as that 
from which the negroes have been emancipated. 

The scheme once determined upon, the traffickers 
in human blood cast eager glances around in 
search of the spots likely to afford them the richest 
harvest ! They fixed on Madeira and Fayal. The 
peasantry of these islands offered peculiar attrac- 
tions ; they were simple and confiding — the more 
likely to listen to promises and seducing repre- 
sentations ; they were ignorant of the English 
language and customs — it would consequently be 
difficult for them to make known the cruel decep- 
tions which were to be practised ; they were 
foreigners — and the chance of sympathy in their 
behalf was rendered more remote. Vessels were 
fitted up for the reception of the destined slaves, 
and despatched with speed and secrecy to the 
above islands. Emissaries had previously circulated 
glowing descriptions of the certainty with which 
fortunes might be acquired in the West Indies by 
all who would simply bind themselves to serve 
there as apprentices for seven years. With what 
rapture did the poor victims rush to "kiss the 



216 FLANS TO OBTAIN 

hands just raised to shed their blood ;" they flocked 
in numbers ; they were greedily caught at. With 
exultation they quitted the land which gave them 
birth — their friends — their countrymen ; with 
exultation they beheld that which they fondly 
believed was to be to them a land flowing wdth 
milk and honey. How rapidly, alas, were they 
fated to awake from their visions of happiness, to 
have their hopes converted into the blackest 
despair ! How signally too were the sins of the 
Portuguese, who had sold into slavery the unfor- 
tunate natives of Africa, now about to be visited 
on their own descendants. 

Once arrived in the colonies, they found them- 
selves beyond redemption at the mercy of those by 
whom they had been deluded, and who now, 
throwing off the mask, sold the astounded 
creatures to the highest bidders,* by whom 
they were distributed over the country, with- 
out, as I have been informed, in many in- 
stances, the least regard to the ties of family. 
In every conceivable point of view their lot was 
* See Note 16. 



WHITE SLAVES. 217 

infinitely more miserable than even that of the 
negroes ; for although exposed, like these, to the 
same treatment as to the degree of toil and coer- 
cion, they were far from being sharers with them 
in the advantages intended to be secured by the 
Abolition Act. The black slaves had the right, at 
any period, of purchasing their immediate freedom ; 
not so with the white slaves. " Seven years," said 
the bond ; and well resolved was each Shylock to 
insist to the last on the pound of flesh. 

But even had the Portuguese, like the negroes, 
possessed the right of offering redemption-money, 
it would have availed them nothing. Far from 
their country, with which no communication was 
carried on, save through the circuitous route of 
England, it would have been impossible for them 
to quit the place to which they had been beguiled ; 
they must have betaken themselves to the woods, 
and then, compelled by want of food to return 
to the vicinity of the towns or plantations, they 
would have been seized and condemned as vagrants ; 
in other words, their former state as slaves on the 
sugar estates to the planters, would have been 



218 FRIGHTFUL CONDITION OF 

changed for that of slaves on the public roads to 
the government. 

The circumstance of the Portuguese and their 
masters being ignorant of each other's tongue 
would have been attended at first with some 
degree of inconvenience and embarrassment, even 
had ^the colonists, on the score of humanity and 
generous feeling, been totally opposite to what 
they are ; but it was now found fraught with 
serious evil, as the violent and impatient manner, 
(inl the absence of the power of explanation by 
words,) with which the managers endeavoured to 
point out to these labourers what was required 
from them, only served to heighten the consterna- 
tion with which the discovery of the deceptions 
used had already filled them. 

Conceiving that sufficient has been said to con- 
vey an accurate idea of the immediate position of 
the Portuguese on their reaching the estates of 
the persons by whom they had been purchased, 
I will present an outline of their subsequent lot. 

Without distinction of sex or age, they were 
indiscriminately mixed with the negroes ; the robust 



THE PORTUGUESE VICTIMS. 219 

man, the delicate female, the tender child, were 
alike compelled to toil in the cane-fields, under a 
tropical sun, and the same quantum of labour 
was demanded from them as from their fellow- 
slaves — the negroes. 

In vain, after a short time, did they begin to 
implore as a mercy, that at all events, if slaves 
they must remain, they might be sent to cocoa 
estates, where, under the shade, they could work 
without being struck by immediate death. In vain, 
on their prayer being refused, did they endeavour 
to make known their condition to the public 
authorities — no interpreter of their language could 
they find ; and in one island no interpreter was 
allowed. In vain did they strive to escape to the 
towns, with the hope that their ghastly appearance, 
and bodies mangled by stripes, might attract the 
attention of the humane ; they were quickly stopped 
by the guards stationed at all points, and lodged 
in the prisons on the estates, where some expired 
from the sufferings they were doomed to undergo ;* 

* See Note 17. 

l2 



220 FRIGHTFUL CONDITION OF 

or if, by chance, one did overcome the vigilance 
of the watchmen, and make his way towards 
Government House, he was seized and shipped off 
to the coast ; an effectual way, truly, of precluding 
the possibility of his obtaining a hearing.* 

The constitutions of these white slaves soon 
began to break under this treatment. Disease in 
hideous forms was not slow in exhibiting itself ; 
and it was shown beyond a doubt, in this instance, 
that the labour, which is so fatal even to negroes, 
can never be performed by men whose bones and 
sinews are covered with a white skin. 

"Whole families, and theirs was the happiest lot, 
were swept from the face of the earth ; while those 
who had the misfortune partially to recover, were, 
if unable to pursue their labour, turned off house- 
less and friendless by the vampires who had ban- 
queted to the last drop on their hearts' blood. 
Their condition became so truly piteous as to move 
the very blacks to compassion. So broken in spirit 
were these free-born subjects ' of the crown of 
Portugal, that they were to be seen suing on their 
* See Note 18. 



THE PORTUGUESE VICTIMS. 221 

knees the charity of the British West India negro 
slaves ; and the charity sued for was never refused 
by the kind-hearted, calumniated black. 

At length the report of their sufferings,* and of 
the startling rapidity with which they were drop- 
ping into the grave, travelled beyond the confines 
of the plantations, and was rendered the subject 
of inquiry by several persons who had already 
been conspicuous for their endeavours to ameliorate 
the condition of the negroes. The result was, the 
bringing to light the particulars I have detailed. 

Immediate steps were taken to submit them to 
the executive ; with what success in other islands, 
I have not yet discovered, but the following 
petition to the Lieutenant-Governor of Trinidad 
will speak for that colony. I claim for it the 
attention of the public ; it is, I may say, a " voice 
from the dead ;" for all who spoke then, without 
doubt, are now in the grave. It cannot fail to 
thrill the hearts of the natives of Fayal and 
Madeira; to them it must prove a document 
equally interesting and painful. Let them attend 
* See Note 19. 



%%% PORTUGUESE VICTIMS. 

to it, as to the dying words and warning of their 
lost countrymen* 

" To His Excellency the Lieutenant-Governor 
of Trinidad, &c. &c. &c. 

" The humble petition of the undersigned sub- 
jects of the Crown of Portugal, respectfully 
sheweth : 

" That with many others of their countrymen, 
they were induced, by certain evil-disposed persons, 
under false pretences, to quit their native country, 
Fayal, to become agricultural labourers in this 
colony. 

" Of the whole number thus cajoled, one-third 
only are still in existence. The rest have fallen 
victims to the unhealthiness of the climate, or to 
the cruelties of the slavery system, to which we, 
equally with the unfortunate blacks, have been 
subjected ; for let the speculators in human blood 
deny it as they will, the awful calamity which has 
occurred among our countrymen in so short a 
period as ten months, must have resulted from one 



VOICE FROM THE DEAD. 223 

or the other of these fatal causes, or from both 
combined. 

" Men, women, and children,* have suffered the 
greatest misery and oppression on the several 
estates, where they have been forced to work far 
beyond their strength, and by coercion of the 
whip, without proper shelter at night, or adequate 
food during the day. 

" The consolations of their religion have been 
denied them in the hour of sickness and of death ; 
whilst the bodies of the miserable victims of avarice 
have been thrown into holes and ditches without 
Christian burial. 

" The cries of the fatherless children and widows 
have been loud in the land, but there was no 
response of Christian charity to soften their grief ; 
no arm of justice to relieve them from the bonds 
of the oppressor. 

" Few are they who are left to tell the tale of 
woe. 

" Your Excellency has often been apprised of 
these truths, but yet our sufferings are unheeded. 

* See Notes 20, 21, & 22. 



224 PORTUGUESE VICTIMS. 

We have been advised that an appeal to the 
Governor - General* for the information of His 
Britannic Majesty's Government, would be at- 
tended to, but we hope your Excellency will 
obviate the necessity of such appeal by mercifully 
acceding to the prayer of your humble Petitioners, 
which is, 

" That your Excellency will be pleased to col- 
lect together the few Portuguese labourers yet in 
existence in this colony ; 

" That you will humanely relieve their immediate 

and pressing wants, particularly those of the poor 

and helpless orphans ; and that you will cause them 

to be transported back to their native country, 

(Signed,) 

" Rosa Const ancia, who has lost her husband 

and three children in ten months. 
" Felicida Perpetua di Castro, who lost 

her husband and one child in ten months. 
" Maria Constancia, who has lost two chil- 
dren in ten months. 
" Mariana Francisca, who has lost four 
children in ten months. 



APPEAL TO THEIR COUNTRYMEN. 225 

" Josef Francisco Maciedo, who has lost 

his wife and. four children in ten months. 
" Antonio Francisco Dabla, who has lost 

two children. 
" Anna Perpetua, the mother of seven 

children. 
" Francisco de Utro Perreira, who has a 

wife and four children at Fayal.* 

" Trinidad, 1st October, 1836." 

Can the annals of England, or indeed of any 
country, present aught more abominably atrocious 
than what is here revealed ? And are these demon 
acts to be persevered in ? 

Are the natives of Fayal and Madeira without 
anxiety for their hapless countrymen and relatives, 
now slaves in the West Indies ? Will they not 
strive at every cost to save those few of their 
brethren who by some miracle may yet be found 
lingering on this side the grave? 

The mother land too ; will she, without remon- 
* See Note 25 for the remaining signatures. 
L 3 



226 A SOLEMN WARNING 

strance, allow her free-born sons to remain in 
bondage ? 

" I looked up to my God for pardon, and to my 
country for revenge," was the Englishman's excla- 
mation, when detailing the preparations made for 
his torture and death ! 

Do the subjects of Portugal look with less confi- 
dence to their country ? Is she so changed from 
the " spirit of yore " as to be without one patriot 
bold enough to raise frs voice ? 

I now beseech all who are hesitating on the 
subject of expatriating themselves to the "West 
Indies as labourers, to read over and over again 
this chapter. I beseech them to read over and 
over again the Notes* in the Appendix. " On my 
knees" I implore them to ponder, to stop while 
yet on the border of the precipice ; and if I save 
one fellow-creature from rushing headlong to cer- 
tain misery and destruction, my toils will be re- 

* "The Arab, of Liverpool, is arrived from Gravesend, with nine 
labourers who emigrated from England as substitutes for the 
emancipated negroes, but found themselves completely unable to 
stand a tropical sun. Twenty-two other labourers went with them 
to the West Indies, of whom nineteen are dead of the fever, and the 
remaining three were left in the hospital." — Globe, 27th April, 1836. 



TO EMIGRANTS. 221 

paid ; I shall not lament the time passed in the 
depraved community which I have endeavoured to 
expose, and shall be prepared to encounter with, if 
possible, increased indifference, the odium and 
malignity of which I well know I shall become the 
object.* 

* Since this chapter was written, regular preparations have been 
made in the colonies to draw upon Europe for labourers. In 
Jamaica the Honourable House of Assembly has passed a resolution 
to allow 121. currency for the importation of every adult person, and 
SI. for those under twelve years of age. — Vide " Times" of October 
20th, 1836. 



228 COLONIAL GOVERNORS. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



Colonial Governors — How selected by the Tories — Never sup- 
ported by that Party — Difficulties encountered by them — Firm- 
ness of the Whig Ministry— Sir Lionel Smith — Barbadoes on 
his Arrival — His Government — A Tory Governor — Description 
of the Colony under him — Portrait of a Governor — as he should 
not be. 



Surely the executive must have shamefully 
slumbered at its post, or still more shamefully gone 
with the stream ; otherwise, how could these 
abominations have reached the height described? 
How could depravity and corruption, both in the 
public departments and in the private societies, 
have taken so deep a root ? Such, methinks, will 
be the exclamation of every thinking mind ; and 
to such I will respond, by entering into some 
observations on a class of functionaries ou whom it 



HOW SELECTED BY TORIES. 229 

might fairly be expected the interests of the colo- 
nies must depend in no inconsiderable degree. 

In some of the preceding pages I have alluded 
occasionally to certain individuals who at different 
periods, and in different islands, have held the 
important office of governor, but it has been 
merely in a general way: to two only have I 
endeavoured particularly to draw attention; the 
one, alas, numbered with the dead ; the other, 
even more fatally for the cause of humanity, still 
amongst the living. 

I will now enlarge a little more upon the subject, 
premising that in the selection for these appoint- 
ments, government, even in the days of Toryism, 
(days, however, which for so many reasons every 
man who loves his country must hope have passed 
away, never to return,) appears to have been guided 
by principles very opposite to those which, until 
lately, have usually operated in England in the 
distribution of a minister's patronage. It has 
rarely occurred, even under the Liverpools, the 
Bathursts, the Sidmouths, that the colonial gover- 
nors have been indebted for their nomination to 



230 COLONIAL GOVERNORS. 

intrigue or party feeling.* They have generally 
been officers of distinguished rank and merit in the 
army and navy ; taught by their professional feelings 
to eschew the arena of politics, and to have solely 
at heart the faithful and zealous discharge of their 
duties, whether Whig or Tory presided at the 
helm in England. Hence it has followed, that on 
a change of ministry at home, confidence has not 
been withdrawn from the colonial governors, 
although the nominees of an administration of 
different politics ; and this confidence has seldom 
been betrayed. Of course, some officers, talented 
in their immediate line, may have been found 
wanting in the qualifications requisite for a go- 
vernor ; occasionally there may have been one of 
a weak and indolent character, another of a harsh 
and despotic one ; still, viewing them altogether, 
they reflect credit on the discernment of those by 
whom they were chosen, and speak volumes for 

* The appointment of the Duke of Manchester must, however, 
always stand as an exception. From this man's administration, 
and the immoral example set by him, we can trace much of the 
lamentable condition, political as well as social, in which Jamaica 
is now placed. 



DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY THEM. 231 

the general talent and integrity of the officers of 
the British army and navy. But they have never 
been supported by the ministry at home : herein 
lies the true cause of the rise, progress, and con- 
tinuance of the abominations on which I have 
expatiated. Their "powers are likewise more cir- 
cumscribed than the English public are generally 
aware of. 

In many of the islands are mimic Houses of 
Commons, where all local affairs are canvassed by 
a class of men, bound by their public pledges, as 
much as by their private feelings, to resist to the 
last every interference of the mother country with 
the negroes. They can stop supplies — refuse to 
ratify the appointments of the executive — at all 
events, which answers the same end, refuse to vote 
the salaries annexed thereto. The moment, there- 
fore, that a governor displays a wish to innovate 
upon the system which for so many generations has 
been transmitted from father to son ; the moment 
that he expresses sentiments inimical to the con- 
tinuance, not only of the slave-trade, however pri- 
vately carried on, but even of slavery itself, (and 



232 COLONIAL GOVERNORS. 

what man, reared in that best of schools, the 
united service of Great Britain, does not regard 
the one and the other with the deepest abhorrence ?) 
a powerful party is at once arrayed against him ; 
scarcely any measure of importance can be carried 
by him without the severest struggle; orators, 
such as they are, in the different Houses of Assem- 
bly, strain every nerve to bring him into odium 
with the public, and by a course of loathsome 
invective, to lead him into acts or expressions 
which may subject him to be removed from the 
government. They allow no opportunity to escape 
of transmitting to England petitions, and memo- 
rials, and remonstrances, and resolutions, agreed 
to at general meetings, on the subject of the mis- 
rule and oppression under which the colony is 
groaning. It is true that the falsehood of the 
whole is at once laid bare ; but, nothing abashed, 
they proceed again and again to the attack, sup- 
ported by members of their party in the British 
Parliament, until the ministry, wearied by the 
constant interruption given to what is considered 
more important duties, by the cabals of a few 



DIFFICULTIES ENCOUNTERED BY THEM. £33 

miserable islands, either displace the governor 
altogether, or remove him to another command, 
naming in his stead one more likely to conciliate ! 
Absurd, fatal idea ! as if anything could conciliate 
West India colonists short of surrendering to their 
tender mercies the entire negro population, and of 
converting the king's representative into a useless, 
contemptible puppet. The object, however, is 
gained ; the removal in question occasions a species 
of interregnum, a colonial civilian administers the 
government, every measure prejudicial to slavery 
politics enacted by his predecessor is speedily 
abolished or neutralized; the "clique" is at once 
strengthened, and still strengthens itself daily, 
until the arrival of the new ruler, when, if he too 
should lean to the side of humanity, the same in- 
trigues recommence, the same results ensue, and the 
colonies remain in their original condition. Thus 
did the Whigs find the West Indies on their ac- 
cession to power. Their first grand measure of 
Reform cleared the boroughmongers' Parliament 
of many nominees of the slavery party, and 
enabled them on this subject to legislate with effect, 



234 COLONIAL GOVERNORS. 

according to the humane and enlightened principles 
of their party. As a consequence, the bill for the 
abolition of slavery followed in rapid succession 
the bill for the abolition of rotten boroughs. This 
blessed act, which alone should immortalize the 
Whigs, and for ever secure them the veneration of 
the. good of every clime, at once struck a deadly 
blow at the accursed system which, under their 
political opponents, had so long thriven and been 
encouraged in every department in the colonies. 

The planters now saw their powers of doing evil 
on the verge of being reduced almost to nothing. 

They found that a solemn account would in 
future be demanded of their proceedings towards 
the negroes ; that they would be vigilantly watched ; 
and that it was resolutely determined that the 
measures prepared for the welfare of the blacks 
should not be permitted to evaporate in words. * 

The instructions to the governors were given in 
this spirit ; they received no secret orders, counter- 
acting the public ones, but were expressly told, 
that they were to see the wishes of the English 
people carried honestly and vigorously into effect ; 



FIRMNESS OF THE WHIGS. 235 

by which alone, the protection of his Majesty's 
Government was to be acquired. Had not this 
been inflexibly adhered to by the colonial minister 
of the day, had the examples of some of his prede- 
cessors been followed, that of my Lord Bathurst for 
example, who for the sake of a little official tran- 
quillity, or of adding a few votes to a government 
majority, reckless of the misery entailed thereby 
upon thousands, allowed the governors to be sacri- 
ficed to conspiracies and misrepresentations, the 
West Indies would have now been the scene of 
anarchy and bloodshed, and the miserable negroes 
further removed from freedom than they were a 
hundred years ago. 

Let not this be forgotten by the people of 
England, when the Whigs come to be weighed in 
the balance. 

And the Governors themselves, — had they 
wavered, had they been moved by the thought of 
the dreadful results prognosticated unless they 
temporized, and advised temporizing measures to 
Ministers, all might have been lost ; but they 
were firm ; with one solitary exception, (and I hope 



236 COLONIAL GOVERNORS. 

yet to live to brand him as he merits,) they went 
heart and soul with Ministers, and strove to fulfil 
their instructions to the letter. 

"Where all acted so faithfully to their king, 
and to their country, it may appear invidious 
to particularize ; at the risk, however, I must 
allude to the officer named at this important 
moment to the high office of Governor-Gene- 
ral of the Windward and Leeward Islands — 
Major-General Sir Lionel Smith, who, during the 
short period he has presided there, has advanced 
the cause of civilization and humanity to an extent 
miraculous even to the very planters themselves. 
He assumed the command under no common diffi- 
culties. He had to legislate for a society, to a 
man opposed to the Government whose views he 
was to carry into effect. He arrived, moreover, 
at Barbadoes after one, who, whatever his integrity 
in private life, which I believe is proverbial, or his 
social and convivial talents, which fame reports 
most brilliant, or his gallantry in the field, to which 
the whole army would cheerfully bear testimony, 
was, from his love of ease and comfort, not to say 



SIR LIONEL SMITH. 237 

indolence, manifestly incompetent to cope with the 
turbulent spirits of a "West India community. 

Under his administration, (I do not wish, nor is 
it necessary, to allude to his own supposed political 
bias,) the slavery party had greatly increased in 
strength ; and when his successor assumed the 
government, he found that party more than ever 
resolved to pursue the system of opposition to 
liberal measures, which had hitherto proved so 
propitious to its ends. 

It was soon discovered, however, that every com- 
plaint against the Governor would be unattended to 
at the colonial office, if not based on truth and 
justice; and that he himself was neither to be 
intimidated by opposition and menace, nor thrown 
off his guard by cajolery. This did not prevent 
numerous obstacles from being cast in the way 
of measures brought forward by him for the 
general good. His declarations were distorted 
and misrepresented in all possible forms; senti- 
ments were attributed to him the remotest from 
truth ; he was exposed to the rancorous personal 
abuse of mob orators, sugar boilers, and plantation 



238 COLONIAL GOVERNORS. 

attorneys ; this abuse was re-echoed by the scur- 
rilous press. Such is an outline of the trials he 
had to encounter. One false step must have been 
fatal to himself, and perhaps for a time to the 
cause confided to his hands ; and how he avoided 
the snares spread for him is a lesson to those 
who believe that a government must be conducted 
by intriguing, tortuous expedients. He pursued 
the straightforward, honourable path, neither 
looking to the right nor to the left, moved neither 
by friend nor foe. 

He acted conscientiously, firmly, temperately ; 
he paved the way for the easy working of the 
Abolition Act ; and when other islands were con- 
vulsed, when martial law was either threatened or 
proclaimed, when one colony was stained with the 
blood of the negro> and another was resounding 
with his shrieks, Barbadoes, thanks to Sir Lionel 
Smith, stood proudly and preeminently tranquil.* 

I must now comment, but, alas, in a strain widely 
different, upon another appointment, which has 

* In Demarara one was hung and thirty- seven transported. In 
St. Lucia, ninety thousand lashes were inflicted on negroes in a 
single week. 



A TORY GOVERNOR. 239 

been followed by serious evil, and which, besides 
being injurious to the best interests of thousands, 
might have involved the very ministry itself in a 
series of inextricable difficulties. 

Many of my readers must remember the feelings 
with' which some few years back was received in 
the House of Commons, the announcement that 
an individual holding high office under the Crown, 
and closely allied by blood as well as by politics 
to the most conspicuous among the Ultra-Tories, 
had become a defaulter to an enormous amount. 

Many, too, must remember the eloquence with 
which more than one member denounced this 
defaulter, and those by whom he was supported ; 
and it should not be forgotten by any right-minded 
Englishman, with what insolent contempt the 
Tory administration of that day treated public 
opinion, by removing out of harm's way to a 
Government in the West Indies, the man charged 
before the representatives of the British people in 
Parliament with an act, perhaps above all others 
the most revolting to the feelings of a gentle- 
man,— with a pecuniary fraud. 



240 COLONIAL GOVERNORS. 

Could the Whigs, on attaining power, have been 
ignorant of the accusations which had been pre- 
ferred against him ? Assuredly not. What demon 
of evil, then, possessed them, when instead of 
hurling him from the height to which Tory cor- 
ruption had raised him, they were persuaded to 
remove him from a Government of very minor 
consequence, by comparison, to one of the most 
important and lucrative in the West Indies — to a 
colony which has proved herself at all periods 
difficult to rule, but rendered a thousand-fold 
more so at this critical period, when a liberal and 
humane system was to be essayed ? And who 
could have been insane enough to expect that such 
a system could find support in one reared in the 
most ultra schools of Orangeism and Toryism ? 

In all probability I shall describe hereafter, 
with some detail, the frightful scenes acted in 
this island at the time the Abolition Bill came 
into force. At present, I shall confine myself 
to its general state, as I saw it in the years 1833 
and 1834, and as it still remains in 1838. Whe- 
ther this state is to be attributed solely and 



A TORY GOVERNOR. 241 

personally to the Governor, or whether regarded as 
the effect of the intrigues of base and irresponsible 
advisers, is no subject for public consideration ; on 
him does the onus lie. 

Under his administration, not only have the be- 
neficial measures effected, or left in progress by his 
predecessors, been destroyed, but half a century, 
under governors the most talented, would scarcely 
suffice to counteract the confusion and misery 
which now prevail. Those who have resided any 
length of time in the West Indies, and minutely 
examined into the capabilities of the island alluded 
to, are well aware it might be rendered of almost 
equal value to England with Jamaica. In every 
direction are to be seen large tracts of uncul- 
tivated land, the soil of which is so uncommonly 
rich and fertile, that persons, experienced in co- 
lonial matters, and in the management of sugar 
estates, have calculated that half a million of 
industrious peasantry could be supported there. 
In the face of this, so far from any encourage- 
ment being afforded to the free settlers, or induce- 
ment to invest their capital in the purchase of 

M 



242 COLONIAL GOVERNORS. 

any portion of the land in question, every official 
impediment is thrown in the way of their ob- 
taining grants on any thing like equitable terms. 
The policy is evident ; the planters are averse 
to augmenting the competitors in trade ; and 
are, moreover, aware that, with these new pro* 
perties, whether extensive or not, an instantaneous 
system of free labour must arise. 

In like manner are the free artisans opposed : 
indeed they may be said to be in want of the very 
necessaries of life. The planters are anxious that 
none but their own slaves should be protected in 
any calling, as from them they can demand a 
large bonus, or monthly taxation, for permission 
to follow the same ; and can, moreover, claim 
a heavy per-centage out of the hard-earned gain- 
ings of these slaves, in the shape of repayment for 
goods, or implements supplied at the outset. 

Proceed to visit the districts of the island; 
they will be found left altogether to chance. No 
roads are formed through the woods ; no facilities 
afforded for a speedy conveyance to the remoter 
parts ; every thing, in fact, is in a wild and savage 



A TORY GOVERNOR. 243 

state. The reader has already had an insight into 
the private society of the colony, — he has seen 
that burglary, and other lawless deeds, are com- 
mitted there with impunity, if not rendered the 
steps to preferment and respect. From all these 
things combined, are we not justified in proclaim- 
ing that in this magnificent island, this island, to 
which nature has been so bountiful and man so 
faulty, the free population is depressed, — the 
bondsman cruelly tyrannized over, — and the edu- 
cated, the peaceable citizen, the judges, and every 
public officer of worth, reviled, insulted, and in 
fear of their lives.* 

How long is this colony to be thus sunk in 
wretchedness? Will not a liberal ministry ex- 
tend to her a protecting arm ; failing which, will 
no member of the senate cause an inquiry to 
be instituted ? ***** 

I have painted two governors as they are : I 
will conclude by presenting the " portrait of a 
governor as he should not be." 

* Vide extract from the Colonial Observer, given in Sir Andrew 
Halliday's valuable work on the West Indies. 

M 2 



244 A GOVERNOR 

He should not be one who, for the support 
given by him in parliament, to every corrupt job 
brought forward by a corrupt ministry, received 
a post which should have been bestowed only on 
some brave man, whose life had been dedicated 
to his country, and his blood shed in her service. 

He should not be one who, coming into office 
shortly after one of the best and most talented men 
that ever appeared in that department, not only im- 
mediately shows himself the opposite of his prede- 
cessor, but has the folly to destroy the system 
introduced by him, and the meanness to persecute 
many of those by the same predecessor selected 
or respected! 

He should not permit himself to be made the 
tool of a faction, nor, whatever his private sym- 
pathies, allow the government residence to become 
the receptacle for the informer and the spy. 

He should not be one so entirely destitute of 
pecuniary means, as to be forced to live literally 
on the charity of the very people whom he should 
control ; thereby laying himself open to the 
grievous suspicion of not daring to refuse his 



AS HE SHOULD NOT BE. 245 

concurrence in any measure, however prejudicial 
to the public good, when proposed to him by those 
whose bounty feeds him. 

He should not be one who is so far forgetful of 
what is due to his elevated position, — a position 
which renders an example from him of deep 
import to the community at large, — as to associate 
on terms of intimacy with, indeed making them 
his boon companions, men against whom every 
respectable house is closed. 

He should not be one, whose language and 
jests are such, as to prevent any man of honour 
from conducting his daughter or his wife to 
" Government House," lest the outraged feelings 
of the parent, or the husband, should hurry him 
into acts inconsistent in a loyal man towards a 
high officer of his sovereign, and which, as a good 
man, it would be painful for him to adopt towards 
grey hairs, although those grey hairs overshadowed 
the brow of the profligate and the bad. 

He should not be one, who, called upon to 
carry into effect an important measure of govern- 
ment, at variance with his recognised public and 



246 A GOVERNOR 

private bias, consents to remain that government's 
servant, while all his proceedings have a direct 
tendency to bring ill success on the measure in ques- 
tion, and the probable downfal of the administra- 
tion employing him. 

He should not render himself the laughing-stock 
of the senseless portion of the community, nor 
the contempt of the reflecting, by appearing daily 
arrayed in fantastic masquerade garbs, reviewing a 
set of mountebanks styling themselves generals 
and colonels ; frequenting their public breakfasts, 
and spouting and brawling at their drunken orgies. 

He should not, because Her Majesty's military 
officers were unable to conceal their disgust at 
these proceedings, and regarded as any thing but 
an honour the being invited to his assemblies, act 
in the manner he believed most likely to prove 
offensive to their feelings as soldiers, by calling 
privates * of their regiment into his chamber, and 
there drenching them with liquor, until they 



* Extract from the regimental orders of the regiment : — 

" On the intercession and earnest entreaty of , together with 

assurance from His Excellency, that the same cause for irregularity 



AS HE SHOULD NOT BE. 247 

disgraced the corps they belonged to, amid the 
jeers of the sycophants who assisted. 

He should not, if required in his official capacity ■ 
to attend once a year a Roman-catholic place of 
worship, in honour of the creed professed by 
a large portion of the people among whom he 
lived, there demean himself with insult and 
irreverence ; nor to the disturbance of the sacred 
ceremony, indulge in bigoted, by-gone, orange 
jests. 

At all events, if such a governor there be, is 
there a man in England who will say that such 
should continue in power ? 

should not again occur, the Lieutenant- Colonel is induced to waive 
a court-martial, &c. 

" Soldiers should bear in mind, that when on any military duty, 
they are on no account to receive wine, or other intoxicating 
liquors, from any person, however high in rank." 



248 ADDRESSES OF 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Addresses of Mr. Stanley previous to 1st August — How received 
— Conduct of some of the Public Officers in the Colonies — Tory- 
Preaching and Advice — Tory Governments always averse to 
Emancipation — Dangers prophesied — The Prophets — Their 
Victims — Hint to Government concerning a certain Solicitor- 
General — Antigua — Attempt to ruin that Colony — Negroes 
kept in Ignorance of what was really intended — Anecdote in 
proof — Worse treated as 1st August approached — Cat-o'-nine-r 
tails — The Abolitionists persecuted — Mr. S. Le Fevre — Barba- 
does described by him. 

Little is known with certainty in England of the 
manner in which the eventful period when the 
rights of human nature were at length to be up- 
held and vindicated, and our country relieved of 
the foul stain by which she had been so long dis- 
graced, passed off in the West Indies. 

It has been widely circulated, and by some 



MR. STANLEY. 249 

believed, that the colonies were saved from con- 
vulsion by the very colonists themselves, who dis- 
interestedly came forward in support of the 
government by which they had been ruined. 

On this subject, therefore, an impartial and 
authentic version must prove acceptable to many 
classes of the public, and I flatter myself that the 
one I am about to present will fully deserve this 
character. 

Long before the 1st of August, Mr. Stanley had 
over and over again addressed the colonists in the 
language not only of counsel, but of entreaty. 
No toil had been spared by him to propitiate 
their acceptance of a measure to which the 
Ministry and the British Parliament stood so 
sacredly pledged. Eloquently and forcibly did he 
point out to the colonial legislatures the glorious 
opportunity before them of securing to themselves 
the attachment of the slave population, and the 
respect and gratitude of the people of Great 
Britain, as well as of the other nations who had 
an interest more or less direct in the happy result 
of the momentous experiment. He glanced at the 
m 3 



250 ADDRESSES OF 

costly sacrifices which had been made by the 
mother country in their favour, and who demanded 
nothing in return but their cheerful concurrence 
in the extinction of negro slavery. That the ex- 
tinction was resolved upon, was clearly and firmly 
laid down ; but whether that extinction was to be 
brought about peaceably or the contrary, must, as 
he truly observed, depend upon the cordial co- 
operation of all classes of the colonists, especially 
of the colonial legislatures. He implored them to 
silence any feelings of jealousy which the contro- 
versies of past years might have excited, to delibe- 
rately estimate the progress and state of public 
opinion as bearing on the subject not in England 
only, but throughout the civilized world ; to reflect 
on the difficulties with which Parliament and the 
Ministry had to contend in maturing the measure ; 
to bear in mind the enormous grant which had 
been voted without a murmur, notwithstanding the 
condition of the national finances; and then to 
unite with him in the zealous prosecution of the 
great design to a successful issue. This, indeed, 
is but a feeble outline of the address of the dis- 



MR. STANLEY. 251 

tinguished statesman, but it will suffice to evince 
the spirit of the whole. 

How did the colonists receive it ? They dog- 
gedly refused to be moved. To the last moment 
they indulged in the contemplation of the down- 
fal of the Government, of which the Right Hon- 
ourable Secretary formed so prominent a part, and 
a consequent change in the intended colonial plans. 

"Let us struggle on," preached one of their 
leading organs ; " who knows but the next packet 
may bring intelligence of the removal of the Whigs 
from office ; then shall we find the crystal drop 
which the lovely lotus, flowering in the boundless 
and arid wastes of Africa, enshrines in her bosom 
for the relief of the thirsty traveller. Under a 
"Whig administration the colonies have never 
received liberal and just treatment, while under 
Tory dominion they have invariably experienced 
protection and support, and may look for the like 
again." And well they might, too, according to 
their estimate of the terms protection and support. 
Well did they know that every Tory Ministry, for 
the preceding thirty years, while seeming to go 



252 DANGERS PROPHESIED. 

hand in hand with the abolitionists, were the 
only substantial enemies of liberty ; and that upon 
any beneficial or practicable project towards ameli- 
oration and ultimate emancipation being proposed, 
they invariably wavered, yielded to the slavery 
cry of ruin and insurrection, and thereby defeated 
all the efforts of the philanthropists ; well did they 
know that the Tories had been the real, because 
the only powerful, champions of colonial bondage. 
But to return from this digression ; in conformity 
with the advice tendered by their leaders, it was 
determined that every opposition should be offered 
to the proposition of Mr. Stanley, as even if the 
opposition could not prevent ultimate emancipa- 
tion, it might still delay the evil day. Petitions 
of the nature which had hitherto been so success- 
ful crowded on the ministry. They represented 
that it would be impossible to avert the inevitable 
convulsion in the order of society, and the fright- 
ful destruction of life and property which must 
ensue from the attempt, should it ever be made, to 
enforce the provisions of the order in Council. In 
continuation, it was declared that the colonists had 



THE PROPHETS. 253 

been placed by the measures of Government in the 
most difficult and dangerous position, and that 
their forbearance alone had preserved the peace 
and good order of the colonies, and ought to 
ensure them the respect and sympathy of all classes 
of his Majesty's subjects. 

At the meetings where resolutions of this de- 
scription were agreed to, individuals holding the 
highest government appointments were to be seen 
presiding, and even the law-officers of the Crown 
were to be found publishing and circulating pam- 
phlets or essays in the forms of memorials, coun- 
selling treasonable factious opposition to the King 
and his Ministers. In one colony more particu- 
larly an address was drawn up by the Solicitor- 
General, in which, among many paragraphs vying 
with each other in violence and insolence, was one 
to the effect (indeed I believe I quote verbatim) 
that the free inhabitants had received with the 
feelings of men deeply injured and cruelly op- 
pressed, the proposition of Mr. Stanley, in the 
House of Commons, for the immediate emancipa- 
tion of the negroes, under a deceptive system of 



254 THE PROPHETS. 

apprenticeship for a limited period, but that they 
were fully resolved never to yield but to masterful 
violence. 

It may be well imagined how much these pro- 
ceedings (with further specimens of which I will 
not disgust the reader) tended to spread consterna- 
tion throughout the islands, and to keep awake 
the feeling against ministers. An attempt was made 
to enlist on the side of the planters the free coloured 
population, a class who, until then, had ever been 
treated with the utmost scorn ; they were implored 
to ally themselves with their white brethren, now 
that all their properties were on the verge of de- 
struction* — when hordes of lawless plunderers 
would, ere long, invade the peaceful fields, and 
destroy with a daring and reckless hand the fair 
fruits of their industry. These, however, many of 
whom in their own persons, or in those of their 
kindred, had witnessed the horrors of slavery, 
scouted the proffered alliance. 

Let it not be surmised for an instant that the 
influential, and for the colonies talented men, by 

* Word for word from a Barbadoes newspaper. 



THEIR VICTIMS. 255 

whom these acts were planned, entertained the 
remotest apprehension of the realization of the 
dangers which they foreboded. Were an inquiry 
to be made as to the eventual lot of those who 
publicly came forward in the West Indies as 
preachers of alarm ; who more loudly than others 
predicted ruin to the colonies, and decay of the 
commerce of Great Britain ; it would be found that 
they are enriched to an extent beyond belief, hav- 
ing laid out every shilling of their fortunes in the 
purchase of sugar estates, and are, moreover, (like 
the man who, filling the office of King's Solicitor- 
General, advised his brother colonists only to yield 
obedience to the king's commands when coerced 
thereto by masterful violence,) daily and hourly 
adding to the same. On the other hand, those who 
listened to their pernicious counsel to dispose of 
their properties at every sacrifice, and to escape from 
the horrors impending, are now pining in ruin, in 
wretchedness, and in exile, cursing their own weak- 
ness, and the sordid miscreants by whom that weak- 
ness was so cruelly and so basely turned to account. 
In the midst, however, of these transactions, the 



256 ANTIGUA. 

leading performers were thrown into some con- 
fusion by the intelligence that the owners of slaves 
in the island of Antigua had determined to forego 
the right of retaining for six years longer the 
gratuitous services of such slaves, and had granted 
to them accordingly instant and unqualified free- 
dom. When it was perceived that no appearance 
of riot or idleness followed this measure, the 
planters of the other islands were in despair at this 
practical refutation of their theories; and lest it 
might operate to the prejudice of their schemes, 
hit upon a plan from which great events were 
anticipated. 

With whom originated " the damnable and 
damning iniquity," (for such, I feel convinced, it 
will be characterised by the reader,) I will not 
inquire ; suffice it to say that a commission (Tri- 
nidad had the honour of furnishing the members) 
secretly proceeded to Antigua, with the object of 
disseminating discontent, mistrust, and disaffection 
among the emancipated negroes ; which was to be 
effected by impressing upon the minds of these 
latter that their masters had only freed them to be 



' INFAMOUS COMMISSION. 257 

spared the necessity of supporting them ; that new 
laws were soon to come into force, when labourers 
would flock from other countries, and they, the 
poor blacks, with their children, be consigned to 
beggary ; that the commission, actuated by motives 
of humanity, had come among them to offer refuge 
and employment in the fertile island of Trinidad, 
where high wages and considerate treatment would 
be secured to them. From this it was to be ex- 
pected that the negroes, exasperated by the 
treachery they were taught to believe had been 
exercised towards them, would rise in tumult, and 
perhaps (I will not say this was hoped) consign the 
different plantations to flames, and spare neither sex 
nor age from their knives ; or, refraining from these 
extremities, that they would, at all events, escape 
from the country where they were free, to accept 
the condition of slavery in other lands. On either of 
these contingencies coming to pass, the purposes 
of the plotters would have been equally served ; 
if the first, it would have led to a well-founded 
alarm, lest a similar result should follow through- 
out the colonies when the day should come for the 



258 NEGROES KEPT 

UN qualified emancipation of the negroes ; if the 
second, it would go to prove that this unqualified 
emancipation was so far from being regarded by 
the negroes themselves as an advantage, that of 
their own accord they abandoned the place where 
the experiment had been tried. 

To what extent the minds of the poor people 
might have been worked upon it is difficult to say, 
although there can exist little doubt that great 
injury would have been effected. Fortunately, 
however, some glimmering of the scheme transpired, 
and reaching the knowledge of the inhabitants of 
Antigua, enabled them to prepare for the coming 
of the treacherous visitors, who were compelled to 
be off with all speed, to renew their machinations 
in their own islands. Riot and tumult had been 
prophesied ; — the prophets to be chiefly dreaded 
are those who have the power of fulfilling 
their own prophecies ; and to this end every art 
that ingenuity could suggest was employed. The 
negroes were to be prevented as much as possible 
from learning what was really intended towards 
them ; the most conflicting reports were circulated 



IN IGNORANCE. 259 

among them ; at one time, that they were to be 
tree immediately ; at another, that the king had 
changed his mind, and they were to remain slaves ; 
again, that the women only were to be emanci- 
pated; then only the children, and so on. 

All this would occasion a feverish excitement 
among them, which might produce some slight mani- 
festation of impatience, easy to be exaggerated into 
one of disaffection, and to be treated accordingly. 

In some of the islands this scheme was, by the 
strong personal efforts of the governors, much neu- 
tralized, though impossible to be entirely defeated 
in opposition to the great majority of the planters. 
I had a proof of this in a colony* where certainly 
the Governor had sincerely at heart the welfare of 
the blacks, and had done every thing in his power 
to place them in possession of the truth. Never- 
theless, only within a few weeks of the important 
first of August, upon travelling in company with 
several brother officers to the distant points of the 
island, we were met at every corner by negroes, 
supplicating intelligence as to their future lot. 
* Tobago, where Major- General Darling is Governor. 



260 WORSE TREATED AS THE 

Moreover, as the time drew nearer for the slaves 
becoming apprentices, the more did the owners 
throw aside all spirit of conciliation, the more did 
they suffer their rancour and distrust to appear ; 
and though there never was a time when the un- 
fortunate negroes were so patient under all their 
sufferings, (such is the effect of hope on the human 
mind, even in its most degraded state,) it is no- 
torious that as the period advanced when the 
accursed whip was to be wrested from the arm of 
the master, never were the slaves more causelessly 
and mercilessly flogged. 

Here I may mention, as it well depicts th« 
planter-feelings, that there was one clause of the 
"Act" which obtained the unqualified approba- 
tion of the " masters ;" this was the one specifying, 
that in future the negroes were not to be flogged 
with a " cart-whip," but with a " cat-o'-nine-tails," 
such as is used in the army. When this was 
made known, the barracks were infested by per- 
sons offering money to the drummers to make up 
for them instruments of torture, secundum artem, 
and " to be powerful and severe" were always 



FIRST OF AUGUST APPROACHED. 261 

the last words. Many officers, (among others, the 
one I had the pleasure of serving under,) were 
actually written to, with the request that their 
men might be permitted to prepare " cats." Of 
course, such requests were treated with contempt ; 
but they served to afford us a tolerable insight 
into the character of those who preferred them. 

Not only were the negroes worse treated than 
ever at this particular period, but every indi- 
vidual, especially the teachers of the gospel, known 
for humanity, received a large addition to the 
usual persecutions of which they were the object. 
They were now regarded as deadly personal ene- 
mies by the opposite party, who were loud in their 
threats, that, upon any riot arising among the 
blacks which should require an appeal to arms 
for suppression, all who had directly or indirectly 
exerted themselves on the anti-slavery side, should 
be among the first and foremost victims. To give 
a colour to the murders which were contemplated, 
and prevent their having the appearance of being 
committed on persons against whom no harm 
was known, many were cited before the local 



262 ABOLITIONISTS PERSECUTED. 

authorities, where, after having been reviled, and 
told to observe the condition to which they had 
helped to bring the owners of slaves, they were 
bound over in large sums to keep the peace until 
the first of August ! Had they, therefore, even- 
tually been put to death, proofs would at once 
have been given by their assassins, that they had 
long been publicly known as conspirators against 
the general safety, and had fallen when again 
plotting against it. 

It might be injurious to the innocent parties 
themselves, were I to name those who were thus 
insulted by those who had insulted the King's 
Government, — who were thus sought to be stig- 
matized with the crime of treason, by the veriest 
traitors on the face of the earth ; I will in conse- 
quence bring but one before the public, and that 
one, only because he is far, far removed from the 
malice of his enemies ; he is now " where the wicked 
cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest." 
This was Mr. Shaw Le Fevre. The letter which 
follows will speak to the reader's conviction : I 
present it without comment: — 



MR. LE FEVRE. 263 

" Cavan Hall, Barbadoes, July 21, 1836. 

" Seeing your manuscript, I thought I might 
venture to look into it ; and although I gave but 
a* hasty glance, I found you had done what has 
not before, I believe, been the case with any 
author. You have developed some frightful facts, 
in language not to be misunderstood. I lament 
to say, that I could, from my own personal know- 
ledge, corroborate you in many respects. * * 
* * * * I am rather surprised you have 
not dwelt more fully on the horrid and disgus- 
ting scenes that have taken place in Bridge- 
Town. I could fill a volume from my own ocular 
demonstration. I endeavoured, shortly after my 
arrival, to obtain redress in some few cases, but I 
found it was quite useless : I only got insult from 
the magistrates. 

" There is now some amendment, but a vast 
deal of iniquity is still practised. On one occa- 
sion (it would not be believed in England) two 
sapient magistrates, members of the House of 
Assembly, in the abundance of their wisdom 
insisted, most illegally, on my entering into 



264 ABOLITIONISTS PERSECUTED. 

securities to keep the peace e till the first of 
August/ the day on which the Act took effect : 
and for what cause, think you, I was thus treated ? 
Forsooth, these ignorant people stated that I had 
too much influence with the slave population ! in 
addition to this, these men in authority absolutely 
made me pay twenty dollars fees, which they 
pocketed. When I reflect, that, for a conside- 
rable period I presided as a magistrate in 
England, over a population of near five-and- 
twenty thousand persons, I confess I did not 
anticipate such "treatment in the West Indies : 
but to this, and other insults, I have been obliged 
to submit, for holding an appointment under the 
British Government. 

* * * * 

I observe you mention my having been called 
before the House of Assembly : I am satisfied 
that I was thus summoned with the view of de- 
grading me. I did not disguise from the House 
that I had only done that I considered I had a 
right to do — namely, to explain the third clause 
of the Act to those who did not understand it 



MR. LE FEVRE. 265 

fully. The poor creatures who had been to 
England or Ireland were certainly free,, but 
many of the owners of such slaves did not like 
to comply with that part of the Act ; and I admit, 
that I entertain very pleasurable feelings at the 
recollection that I was the means of putting many a 
fellow-being at that period, and for many months 
after I had been called before the House, in 
the way to obtain that freedom to which the law 
entitled him. In acting thus I was convinced I 
was not doing an injustice to the owners ; and I 
told the House that it was quite evident to me, 
that the Government who could grant so liberal 
a sum as twenty millions for compensation, would 
certainly appropriate a portion thereof to the 
owners of slaves claiming their freedom under the 
third clause of the Act in question. The result 
has proved I was correct." 

Having aiforded an insight into the spirit with 
which the colonists were prepared to meet the 
first of August, I will endeavour to portray the 
effects which attended it. 



9.66 MARTIAL LAW DESIRED. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Martial Law desired — The King's Troops — Feeling in the Army — 
Trifling Exceptions — Trinidad looked to by other Colonies — Why 
— Contemplated Butchery — Lieutenant- Colonel Hardy, 19th 
Regiment — Warlike Preparations — Militia — 1st August — The 
Governor's Address to the Negroes — How received — Sanguinary 
Feeling against them — Trinidad at Night — Ludicrous Militia 
Dispute. 

A few hours only were wanting, and the Abolition 
Act would become the law of the land. No 
signs of riot or impatience had yet been witnessed 
among the negroes, and what was still more em- 
barrassing to their masters, they appeared deter- 
mined, (whether of their own accord, or by the 
tutoring of their well-wishers, is of no importance,) 
that neither outrage nor oppression should lure 
them from the passive position they had taken up. 
A proclamation of Martial Law was however, 
if possible, to be effected. 



the king's troops. 267 

The colonists were particularly anxious that His 
Majesty's troops of the line should be brought 
into collision with the negroes, calculating that 
if blood were spilt, it would be believed in Eng- 
land that the experiment of " emancipation" was 
too hazardous to be persisted in. 

Reasonings, flatteries, persuasions, were all em- 
ployed to enlist the officers of the army on their 
side. They had little conception of the chivalrous 
spirit reigning among the followers of the noble 
profession, and that humanity is ever the com- 
panion of true courage. They were astounded, 
therefore, when they found that here predomi- 
nated sympathy towards the negroes, indignation 
at their treatment, respect for the meekness they 
displayed, with a full resolve, on the part of the 
military, not to lend themselves in any shape to 
the measures which they could not but perceive 
were being planned. 

This I may affirm to have been the general feel- 
ing in the army, for although one* or two junior 

* One gentleman traversed half a colony at the head of troops, 
without experiencing even a show of resistance ; nevertheless in a 

N 2 



268 FEELING IN THE ARMY. 

officers may have been weak enough to accept 
colonial appointments at this period, such as those 
of magistrates, and commandants of militia, and 
may have had their silly vanity gratified by hearing 
themselves styled for a few weeks Generals or 
Colonels ; this was not sufficient to enable the 
colonists to disguise from themselves that the 
military in general were against them, and that 
to their own resources alone must they look to 
effect the much desired proclamation of martial 
law. ? 

It is not necessary I should describe the at- 
tempts made in each island for this diabolical end, 
which would have stripped the negro of all protec- 
tion. T will simply detail those in Trinidad, which 
are more or less the counterparts of what the 



flaming despatch to Government, he made mention of more dis- 
tinguished officers, such as his Adjutant- General, his Quarter- 
Master- General, than did the Duke of Wellington after Waterloo. 

Among others noticed by him, was one bearing the name of 
Molasses, represented, if I remember, as a great proficient in 
military tactics, evinced by the manner in which he destroyed 
sundry negro huts by which the column was impeded. 

As was well observed by the Editor of the United Service Gazette, 
" Liston and Reeve never did any thing half so funny as the writer 
of this Despatch." 



TRINIDAD LOOKED TO. 269 

planters were anxious should be made throughout 
the West Indies. 

The attention of the sister colonies was riveted 
on this island, as if any check were to be success- 
fully offered to the ministerial measure, here was 
the spot to commence it. 

A Governor presided, altogether of the slavery 
school in politics ; closely linked with the most 
violent among the planters, and with whom his 
private necessities indeed, without other causes, 
would, it was imagined, compel him to side. So 
sanguine was the expectation of the result, that 
many persons, I have been informed, were to be 
heard calculating and discussing the rate of com- 
pensation and indemnity they would have a right 
to claim for all the negroes, that is to say, all that 
portion of their property which might be injured, 
in other words, butchered, during the period mar- 
tial law should be in force. I cannot here avoid 
expressing my conviction that had any massacre 
of the blacks taken place, it would have been 
confined (save in those cases where personal feel- 
ings of revenge were stronger even than self- 



270 LIEUTENANT-COLONEL HARDY. 

interest) to the aged and worn out — to the muti- 
lated and the useless. By this a two-fold object 
would have been attained — unmerited com- 
pensation, and riddance of profitless burdens. 
These schemes, thank God, were destined to be 
foiled. 

One of the best men that ever breathed — one 
of the most loyal subjects king ever possessed 
--one of the most chivalrous spirits that ever 
adorned the ranks even of the British army, at this 
time commanded the troops in Trinidad, Lieu- 
tenant-Colonel Hardy, of the 19th Regiment ; and 
by him alone were the contemplated atrocities 
prevented. 

On the 31st July,* Colonel Hardy, through an 
official letter addressed to him by the Lieutenant- 
Governor, obtained the first glimpse of what was 
concocting. 

His Excellency stated that in order to give 

security to the town and neighbourhood at that 

juncture, he had deemed it advisable to require 

the services of the militia ; guards of which would 

* See Note 24, 



WARLIKE PREPARATIONS. 271 

mount that evening at the different alarm posts 
specified. 

To show that every thing was to be conducted 
on the most approved warlike system, His Excel- 
lency desired to be made acquainted with the 
mode of giving the sign and countersign, adding 
that he had confided this despatch to an officer of 
dragoons, and had moreover ordered two dragoons 
to be on duty at the 19th barracks, from that 
evening until further directions, for the purpose of 
conveying any communications the Colonel might 
have to make from St. James's, to Port of Spain, 
or the neighbourhood. 

At this announcement great was the surprise of 
the military commandant ; his own personal ob- 
servation, joined to that of the officers of his 
regiment, having led him to believe that the tran- 
quillity of the town was in not the slightest danger, 
and that so far from riot being contemplated by 
the negroes, their demeanour had been marked by 
increased decorum and civility, as the day for their 
partial manumission advanced. He, however, pro- 
ceeded with all despatch to the town, where it 



%i% WARLIKE PREPARATIONS. 

appeared the campaign was to open. On his arri- 
val he found the streets thronged with militia 
troops ; numerous posts occupied by them ; artil- 
lery being brought into position ; officers, in the 
utmost alarm and confusion, running to and fro, 
receiving and conveying reports ; with other miser- 
able tom-fooleries, which, as observed by himself, 
would have been truly laughable and ridiculous, 
had not the mischievous motives which put matters 
into such a posture rendered them infamous in the 
extreme. 

It will be well to place before the reader an 
enumeration of the militia force of the island, as 
an idea may then be formed as to the real danger 
to be dreaded from any tumultuous assemblage of 
negroes, even had these been so inclined, as well as 
of the personal courage of those who, with such an 
enormous military force at their disposal, all pre- 
pared and under arms, could piteously whine, and 
implore the protection of the King's troops, amount- 
ing to not more than 150 effective men. 

This, then, was the mighty muster of the Trinida- 
dian heroes : — 



213 



Trinidad Light Dragoons, 

St. Anne's Hussars, 

St. Joseph's Light Cavalry, 

North Naparima Cavalry, 

South Naparima Cavalry, 

Royal Trinidad Artillery, 

Royal Trinidad Battalion, 

Loyal Trinidad Battalion, 

Sea Fencibles, 

Diego Martin Chasseurs, 

Diego Martin Infantry, 

Carenage Battalion, 

Loyal Trinidad Light Infantry Battalion, 

Couva Battalion, 

North Naparima Infantry, 

South Naparima Infantry, 

Savannah Rangers, 

Arima Pioneer Corps, 

Point Pierre Regiment, 

Military Artificers' Company, 

St. Joseph's Invalids, 

Royal Invalid Corps, (fit for active service,) 

Unattached — General Staff, &c. &c. &c. 

N S 



274 WARLIKE PREPARATIONS. 

Towards evening,* when the military arrange- 
ments were perfected, a plan of operations was 
transmitted to Colonel Hardy. 

Up to this present moment, — (mark well the 
following facts, reader ; I have them in the hand- 
writing of Colonel Hardy, and they can be sub- 
stantiated by every officer of the 19th Regiment, 
or other unprejudiced person, at that time in Tri- 
nidad,) — up to this present moment, the colony, as 
far as the slaves were concerned, was tranquillity 
itself. Up to this moment little, if any thing, had 
been done to instruct them as to their impending 
change of condition ; they were altogether igno- 
rant of the true intention of government, and of 
the distinction between slave and apprentice. 

Weighing all these things, it required no very 
great powers of discrimination to perceive that the 
measures now in progress by Sir George Hill were 
not only unnecessary and ill judged, but manifestly 
the result of wicked advice and intentions. Colonel 
Hardy determined to be guided accordingly. 

Thus stood affairs on the night of the 31st of 

* See Note 25= 



FIRST OF AUGUST. 275 

July. The whites passed it under arms, carousing, 
blaspheming, burning with schemes of blood ; the 
blacks in prayer and thanksgiving to that Great 
Being in whom they placed their trust, and in 
visions of happiness which the following morn was 
to open upon them — poor, poor people ! 

' On the 1st of August, at ten o'clock, a messenger 
arrived in breathless haste * at the barracks, bear- 
ing a communication from the Attorney-General of 
the colony, to the effect that a large number of 
apprenticed labourers had assembled before Go- 
vernment House, and numerous others, from various 
quarters, were hastening into the town ; for which 
reasons His Excellency Sir George Hill desired 
that a company of the 19th Regiment should be 
sent to his assistance. Before acting upon this, 
Colonel Hardy resolved to inform himself a little 
of the true state of affairs, and mounting his horse, 
rode through all the principal streets of the town, 
and approaches to it, without witnessing any thing 
like a crowd or tumult. Upon arriving at Govern- 
ment House, he found assembled in front about 

* See Note 26. 



276 WARLIKE PREPARATIONS. 

two hundred persons, mostly women, but all per- 
fectly quiet and harmless in their demeanour. 

Having thus satisfied himself, he, out of courtesy 
towards the Lieutenant-Governor, and with the 
view of removing the affright which seemed to have 
taken such possession of him, ordered a party of 
thirty men, under the command of an extremely 
intelligent young officer, Lieutenant Franklin, to 
proceed to Government House. 

Neither on the march thither, nor on their arri- 
val, did they perceive any symptoms of riot ; the 
people assembled appearing to have been attracted 
solely by the novelty of a guard mounting at a spot 
where it had not been customary. The officer 
having, for form's sake, posted different sentries at 
the weak points, and disposed his men most ap- 
propriately in the event of a siege, was called into 
the council chamber. Upon informing the mag- 
nates there that the party under his command 
consisted of thirty men, one general voice was 
heard condemning the madness and folly of Colonel 
Hardy in sending such a ridiculously trifling force 
when the state of affairs was so alarming. A fresh 



FIRST OF AUGUST. £77 

requisition* for troops was drawn up by Sir George 
Hill himself, urging the necessity of their presence, 
as not only had large numbers of negroes arrived, 
but others were arriving, and great danger was to 
be apprehended if the town negro apprentices 
joined and coalesced with those from the country. 
The personal attendance of Colonel Hardy 
was likewise requested, His Excellency being 
anxious to consult with him as to the necessity of 
getting these people out of the town, and the 
means to be employed. 

On the receipt of this despatch, the colonel, 
without sending the augmentation of troops sued 
for, proceeded at once, and alone, and without 
receiving any molestation on the way, either by 
word or act, to Government House. He ascended 
to the Council-Chamber, which he found filled 
with lace and embroidery, feathers and spurs. 
From thence, casting his eyes into the streets 
below, which were crowded with infantry and 
cavalry, beggaring the Mayor of Garratt, he saw 
sufficient to tell him the real extent to which 
* See Note 27. 



278 WARLIKE PREPARATIONS. 

matters had gone ; and the great officers of state 
looked not a little foolish when the first words 
with which he accosted them were — " Well, 
gentlemen, where is the mob ?" He was now 
attacked, open-mouthed, by all. The serious 
account he would have to render, were an insur- 
rection to gain head from his inertness, was for- 
cibly depicted to him. The eternal gratitude 
which the colonists would entertain towards him 
and his regiment, were they to come forward on 
this emergency, was dwelt upon : the strong 
proofs of this feeling, which he might expect to 
receive, were delicately hinted at; the whole 
ending with inuendoes, that suspicions were be- 
ginning to be entertained that feelings of a per- 
sonal nature operated to prevent his interference, 
which he would do well to rebut by his actions, 
and to bear in mind the Bristol business, and the 
fate of Colonel Brereton ! 

No reply was vouchsafed to this insolence, save 
contemptuous silence, with a smile of scorn and 
derision, more expressive than words. Turning 
upon his heel, he left the Council to themselves. 



FIRST OF AUGUST. 279 

A long and stormy consultation was now carried 
on ; at the close of which, the presence of the 
officer, commanding the King's troops, was again 
required. The summons being obeyed, a paper 
was placed in his hands containing the draft of 
an address to the negroes, and of different mea- 
sures of precaution and defence; but the whole 
wound up with a declaration of martial law in 
case of violence or disobedience by the negroes, 
or of their not immediately dispersing when the 
address should be concluded. To this Colonel 
Hardy at once offered a stern unqualified opinion 
of dissent and disapprobation; observing, that 
there appeared nothing to justify even the most 
distant allusion to so sad an expedient. He con- 
cluded a brief, but powerful remonstrance, with 
the following words, which would have carried 
shame and remorse to the hearts of all but the 
sordid race steeled by their slavery-politics against 
every humane emotion: — "Let us not, for God's 
sake," — were the expressions of this excellent 
man, — "let us not usher in the grand national 
intention by a proclamation of martial law ; which, 



280 THE GOVERNOR'S ADDRESS 

independently of filling the island with blood, will 
for ever exasperate against us the negro popu- 
lation. Conciliate, conciliate your free labourers, 
gentlemen, and they will repay you at a future 
period." 

At this time about three hundred and fifty 
negroes had collected; the two sexes in nearly 
equal proportions; many of the women carrying 
children in their arms. They were mostly field- 
labourers, as their coarse dress and rustic appear- 
ance denoted. 

It is likewise worthy of remark, that the negroes 
were not even armed with sticks, which is the 
more singular, as they rarely travel in a wild, 
woody country, like Trinidad, without a cutlass. 
The cutlass, indeed, is almost invariably carried 
by them, whether on the estate or elsewhere. It 
forms part of their equipment. 

These people stood opposite Government House, 
quietly talking and joking with each other, — not 
one vociferation of an angry nature was to be 
heard. They appeared as ever — meek, and humble, 
and patient. Their object was simply to ascer- 



TO THE NEGROES. 281 

tain whether (to employ their own words) " the 
King had made them free ; and if free, to receive 
their free-papers, which King William had sent 
out." 

In the course of the morning they had been 
brutally kicked and beaten by the police, as well 
as by the militia cavalry, who repeatedly charged, 
without being able to provoke them to any act 
of resistance. 

But to return to the Address. It was now to 
be delivered. Bear in mind, reader, I must say 
once more, however prolix I may appear, that 
this was the first of August; and here were the 
poor creatures seeking the information they ought 
to have received in short printed and verbal 
notices, again and again repeated, six or twelve 
months before. They were still to be informed 
as to the intention of the British nation ; they 
came to learn it. Here was their offence ! 

The Governor approached the window, the 
negroes ran up with eagerness to catch what he 
was about to utter. This was construed into an 
indication of a general assault. 



282 THE GOVERNOR'S ADDRESS 

" My God, we shall be murdered ! " cried out 
the brilliant staff by which his Excellency w r as sur- 
rounded. 

"We shall be murdered!" was re-echoed by 
others of his brave attendants ; and a retrograde 
movement to the Council Chamber was effected 
with celerity, if not order. 

Another consultation ensued; another appeal 
was made to Colonel Hardy, who stood smiling by. 
It was agreed that, at all risks, the Address must 
be delivered. 

Sir George Hill again exhibited himself to the 
crowd, and in faltering accents commenced his 
harangue. 

He explained several clauses of the Act ; pointed 
out to the bewildered negroes that slavery had 
existed in the days of the Romans ; that it was 
sanctioned by Divine writ ; that they ought to be 
satisfied with their condition, and grateful to their 
masters, than whom none could be more kind and 
humane, &c. &c. 

The speech was listened to with the utmost 
attention and respect. The deepest silence was 



TO THE NEGROES. 283 

observed, until a sentence now and then concluded 
by telling them they were not free yet ; that in 
their new condition they must still work six years 
in the fields, four years in domestic service. They 
shook their heads at this, and clasping their hands 
as if in prayer, or in distress, piteously exclaimed 
" Nee, Nee, Nee ! " 

Their disappointment was evidently severe. It 
was therefore no time to insist further by words. 
Their conviction was not reached in the moment 
by the harangue, after a long enjoyed hope, which 
was thus abruptly dashed to atoms ; and six years 
in prospective seemed to them a new lease of 
slavery without limit, an aggravation of the cala- 
mities of their past lives. 

Shortly after the Address, they were to be told 
that the mere act of their being assembled together 
was in contravention of the law, and that if within 
a short period they did not disperse and return 
home, they would be seized and thrown into prison. 

When this was debated in the Council Room, 
Colonel Hardy ventured to remind the Council of 



284 CONSULTATION IN 

the ignorance in which the poor people had been 
left ; and appealed to their feelings, whether this 
was not an occasion to treat with indulgence the 
transgression of strict rules by the new appren- 
tices, carried as they were beyond them, by the 
greatest event, and most engrossing interest it 
was possible to conceive the human mind could be 
filled with. He proceeded to suggest, that as it 
was then six o'clock, and the rain had continued 
for several hours without intermission, by which 
the streets were completely flooded, and the 
assembled negroes drenched, — pointing at the same 
time to the miserable wretches below, who 
crouched within themselves, ignorant of the alarm 
they were occasioning, were looking up im- 
ploringly to the windows, — if the members of the 
Council would retire to their respective residences, 
and his Excellency order Government House at 
the same time to be shut up, thereby leaving the 
half drowned, hungry negroes to themselves, they 
would soon disperse of their own accord in search 
of shelter and food ! 



THE COUNCIL CHAMBER. 285 

These humane and sane propositions were im- 
periously overruled. 

" The rascals will commit excesses," cried one ; 
(( Drive them out of the town at the point of the 
bayonet," was the warlike speech of another ; " Cut 
them to pieces," was the improved suggestion of a 
third ; while a fourth, more prudent, simply advised, 
" that they should be forced into the yard, when a 
selection could be made from the most turbulent," 
&c. &c. The venerable Governor, the very pic- 
ture of alarm, first looked at one, and then at 
another of the speakers ; at length taking his cue 
from an influential adviser, he observed it was 
absolutely necessary to make an example, and that 
he gave his sanction to the capturing of the ring- 
leaders. 

Different warriors sprang from the room as if 
gallantly rushing on a forlorn hope, and when 
arrived in the streets, began to particularize the 
rebels whom they wished should be seized. 

" Catch that rascal, I know him well." " Take 
that girl to jail, I will teach the ungrateful jade 
to ask for liberty ;" and similar expressions re- 



286 SANGUINARY FEELINGS AGAINST 

sounded on all sides. The militia cavalry, headed 
by their officers, formed a circle, in which they 
drove all they could, and who were taken off to 
jail without a show of resistance on their part, or 
on that of their friends and relatives. 

On their arrival at the prison,. the chief of police, 
a ci-devant planter, literally had the audacity to 
order the soldiers of the line, on the jail guard, to 
load their fire-locks with ball cartridge : * 
a good specimen of the sanguinary cowardly 
feeling prevailing. 

This glorious victory accomplished, His Excel- 
lency Sir George Hill rode through the crowd to 
his private residence, accompanied by Colonel 
Hardy on foot. Not a murmur nor disrespectful 
word was to be heard. The Colonel having seen 
his Excellency safe, returned to the barracks, 
delighted with the demeanour of the poor blacks, 
deeply pitying them, and disapproving, or rather 
disgusted with, every other part of the scene acted 
during the day. 

* See Note 28. 



THE NEGROES. 287 

At night the proceedings were all of a similar 
nature. Every half hour the streets were peram- 
bulated by the militia infantry, as well as by a 
cavalry piquet from the same force. Much dis- 
pleasure was expressed at what was termed the 
indifference of the officer of the 19th regiment. 
Lieutenant Franklin, who had remained with his 
party at Government-House, and who refused to 
lend an ear to their tales of danger. In vain did this 
young man, who throughout showed himself well 
worthy of the confidence reposed in him by his 
commanding officer, when he selected him for the 
important duty on which he was employed, re- 
mark upon the quietness of the negroes, and the 
utter groundlessness for any alarm. Will it be 
believed that his listeners strove to impress upon 
him, that this very quietness was to be dreaded 
above all things (and they who had lived all their 
days among them must surely know the negro 
character better than any military gentleman could 
pretend to do), as it evinced a blood-thirsty dog- 
gedness quite appalling; and that there existed 
no doubt of the negroes having cutlasses concealed 



288 TRINIDAD AT NIGHT. 

near the town, which they only waited the oppor- 
tunity to employ. There could be no clearer proof 
of this, according to these reasoners, than the 
blacks being unarmed during the day ! However 
contemptible these fears may appear now, they 
assumed a very different complexion at that 
moment, when they were shared by some of the 
first characters in the colony ; among others, by 
the Attorney-General, who literally came to the 
guard-room occupied by Lieutenant Franklin to 
solicit protection, and there passed the night, 
armed to the teeth ; thus giving his countenance 
to deeds, which it was his bounden duty to dis- 
courage. 

Lieutenant Franklin, on the following morning, 
reported to the commandant that the town had re- 
mained undisturbed throughout the night : indeed 
the only time his services were required was to 
arrange a somewhat singular dispute among the 
militia themselves. It is so ludicrous, that I must 
be pardoned if I describe it. It appeared that at 
one post was a guard of fifty men, but giving only 
one sentry. Now the difficulty was how each 



LUDICROUS DISPUTE. 289 

man was to mount once as sentry during the 
night, so that each might boast in after days of 
having confronted danger, and that none might 
have the power of taunting another with having 
drawn back from peril ! 

Thus ended the First of August. 



290 DEMAND FOR TROOPS. 



CHAPTER XVI. 



Demand for Troops — Alarming Reports — Appeal to Colonel 
Hardy— Further Attempts at Martial Law — Horrible Occur- 
rence — Flogging Parade — Subsequent Floggings — Astounding 
Fact — Sir George Hill, Bart. — Colonel Hardy. 



The small party friendly to the negroes indulged 
a hope that their enemies would now desist from 
their iniquitous schemes. They were the more san- 
guine from learning, in the forenoon of the 2d of 
August, that although the council had been in 
deliberation for some hours, no rumours had tran- 
spired of a fresh call for troops, nor had the officer 
commanding been sent for. These expectations 
were vain.* About six o'clock in the evening, a 
* See Note 29. 



DEMAND FOR TROOPS. 291 

requisition was transmitted to the barracks for the 
instant marching into the town of a further force 
of one officer and fifty men. 

Colonel Hardy, without complying with the 
demand, went at once to Sir George Hill to 
remonstrate against it. He represented, in the 
first place, that it was far beyond his means, in 
reference to the future efficiency of the troops, 
should necessity require them, of which, however, 
he was free to confess he anticipated no prospect ; 
secondly, that he was firmly of opinion the militia 
parades of the two preceding days had done con- 
siderable harm, as the employment of the military 
in any country, where the people themselves could 
not but feel there was no necessity for such a step, 
cheapened the troops, and the effect which their 
very appearance ought to produce would be lost 
by an injudicious and too frequent resort to them. 
He, therefore, claimed the privilege of protesting, 
in the strongest manner, against the bringing 
his Majesty's troops into notice, until a real occa- 
sion required them. 

It was not deemed expedient by Sir George 
o 2 



292 ALARMING REPORTS. 

Hill and his advisers to agitate the question fur- 
ther at that moment : consequently peace and 
quietness reigned throughout the day and night. 

Thus ended the 2d. of August. 

The first thing presented to Sir George Hill 
the following morning was an official report from 
Colonel Hardy,* in which he had the gratification 
of conveying to his Excellency the intelligence 
that the "utmost silence and tranquillity" had 
continued all night in the town. 

In the face of this, his Excellency's advisers had 
sufficient sway over him to induce him to make 
another attempt in favour of their wishes. 

Colonel Hardy was requested to attend before 
the council. When there, he was harangued by 
Sir George Hill on the aspect of affairs, repre- 
sented by His Excellency to be alarming in the 
extreme ; that he, Sir George, had received re- 
ports which could be faithfully relied on, to the 
effect that the danger on the east coast of the 
island was imminent ; that nothing could equal the 
consternation prevailing in the town, where the 
* See Note SO. 



APPEAL TO COLONEL HARDY. 29S 

most interesting families were literally in a frenzy 
of terror ; that all North and South Naparima were 
at that moment marching across the Savannah 
Grande on Port of Spain, upon which a plan of 
attack had been organized, and where six thou- 
sand domestic apprentices were prepared to rise 
and join the insurgents from without; that all 
Arima and the approaches to it were in such a 
state of insurrection, that he had been compelled 
to order that one hundred and fifty stand of 
arms, and four thousand rounds of ball car- 
tridge, should be sent there the following day, 
under an escort of police. His Excellency con- 
tinued, that it had always been a great happiness 
to him to have the ready and cheerful cooperation 
of his Majesty's military officers until that period, 
when the want of it was so painful to him. He 
implored him to reflect on the wealth in the trea- 
sury, and then to say whether, in such a fearful 
crisis, he could reconcile it to himself to persist in 
his opposition to the employment of the troops of 
the line. 

To impress this address more particularly, his 



294 ALARMING REPORTS. 

Excellency finished by reading aloud the Order in 
Council, requiring military cooperation. 

All present chimed in, of course, with this 
solemn appeal, and, as usual, many hits were 
made at Colonel Hardy, by allusions to poor 
Brereton and the Bristol affair. It was thought 
impossible that he could remain unmoved. They, 
however, miscalculated grievously : the man before 
them was made of materials incomprehensible to 
minds like theirs. 

Passing over with contempt the sarcasms levelled 
at himself personally, he replied that he had been 
too much accustomed in Trinidad to reports of 
impending dangers, to be moved by the present, 
especially after being an eye-witness of the perfect 
tranquillity prevailing, and which had been con- 
firmed by the reports to the same effect which he 
had received from the officers under his command. 
He craved permission to remind Sir George Hill 
that, during his Excellency's administration, ru- 
mours of insurrection had been most frequent, 
and that the result of all, without one single 
exception, had proved them false. He more 



REPLY OF COLONEL HARDY. 295 

particularly recalled to his Excellency's memory the 
occurrences of the preceding Christmas, when he, 
Sir George, had been led to believe, by designing 
people, that the negroes were planning an attack on 
the town, and a general massacre of the whites. 

Under these circumstances, he reasserted his firm 
conviction that there existed no necessity whatever 
for the calling out of the military, and that he 
would not give his concurrence to the employment 
of the King's troops without urgent and evident 
necessity, nor until the police and militia had been 
found insufficient to preserve the peace. At the 
same time he begged to suggest, whether, if the 
country were in the convulsed state represented by 
his Excellency, it would be wise to send the 150 
stand of arms and 4,000 ball cartridges destined 
for Arima, under the escort proposed ; and that as 
his opposition was founded on principle only, he 
now of his own accord recommended recourse to 
the military, and that the stores in question should 
be sent under a guard of regular troops, which he 
would immediately afford, and direct the officer in 
command of the same to remain two or three days 



296 FURTHER ATTEMPTS 

in the country, and inform himself of the true state 
of affairs ; after which his Excellency might feel 
assured of receiving a report void of falsehood or 
exaggeration. 

The council broke up. Thus ended the 3d of 
August. 

On the following morning* Sir George Hill, as 
usual, was greeted with the communication from 
the officer commanding the troops, that the tran- 
quillity of the town had remained undisturbed. 

It might have been hoped that by this time his 
Excellency would have recognised the sane judg- 
ment of Colonel Hardy, and have freed himself 
from the designing faction about him ; so far from 
this, he commanded the Government Secretary -j- to 
notify that the addition of a company of the 19th 
Regiment to the guard in town was absolutely 
necessary in its present state ; and that his Excel- 
lency requested the reinforcement might be sent 
within as short a period as possible after the re- 
ceipt of the demand for the same. 

Colonel Hardy hastened to his Excellency's 
* See Note 81. f See Note 32. 



AT MARTIAL LAW. 297 

presence, with the intent of reiterating his former 
objections, but was stopped short by Sir George 
Hill's informing him that the Council were then 
sitting, and still urging him to martial law. In the 
most emphatic manner he protested against the 
measure, and feeling it useless to waste further 
words, retired to the place fitted up for the 
reception of the troops, heart-sick and horrified at 
the designs he saw contemplated, and which he 
began to fear he should be unable to avert. 

Fortunately the Governor hesitated on taking 
upon himself such a fearful responsibility as would 
follow the proposed measure, when known that it 
had been carried in direct opposition to the officer 
commanding the troops : it was consequently not 
persisted in ; but the Colonial Secretary was en- 
joined to follow Colonel Hardy, and endeavour, in 
some shape or other, to obtain the presence in the 
town of a larger body of the King's forces than the 
small detachment already there. Without doubt it 
was calculated that from the most trifling sanction 
of that nature, favourable results to the colonial 
plans might be forced. 

o 3 



£98 RENEWED APPEAL3 

This gentleman commenced by stating, that the 
ringleaders who had been captured on the pre- 
ceding Saturday, had received their respective 
floggings in jail, whereas it would have had a far 
better effect had such been inflicted in public. 
(God forgive me if I am uncharitable in the belief — 
I shall retain it to my dying day — that this after- 
thought of flogging in public originated in the 
hope that the negroes, on witnessing the tortures 
of their friends and relatives, might be moved 
from their passiveness.) 

" It is therefore proposed," continued the Secre- 
tary, "that fresh people should now be flogged, it 
being requisite a public example should be made ; 
and as unfortunately the negroes persist in believ- 
ing that the intention from home has not been 
faithfully given them, and they have been heard to 
say, that this belief was confirmed by their having 
hitherto seen the police who were paid by the 
colony, and the militia, who were their masters, 
and who belonged to the colony, brought out 
against them, while the King's troops were not, 
his Excellency and the Council think it would be 



TO COLONEL HARDY. 299 

an excellent plan to undeceive them on this point, 
and as the floggings are to take place immediately, 
Sir George Hill trusts you will be so good as to 
march in a detachment of the 19th Regiment to 
witness the punishments." 

To this a decided refusal was given, as well as to 
numerous arguments and appeals followed up by 
the same gentleman, who found himself compelled 
to convey the untoward result of his mission to 
the Council. 

He shortly returned with Sir George Hill's 
expressions of deep regret at the Colonel's deter- 
mination, and his Excellency's previous wish 
modified to hastening into town the reinforcement 
which had been demanded. 

Colonel Hardy, however, remained inflexible : 
he declined hastening the movement of the troops, 
assuring the Secretary, that even when they did 
arrive they should in no shape whatever participate 
in the intended spectacle. 

These discussions having occasioned delay, the 
flogging parade was postponed. 

The termination of this day's proceedings will 



300 HORRIBLE OCCURRENCE. 

cause the blood of every man who has a heart, to 
run cold with horror. The Attorney- General, on 
coming, after dining with Sir George Hill, to his 
place of refuge, (the above-mentioned guard- room, 
occupied by Lieutenant Franklin,) requested this 
officer to accompany him to the police office, to 
inquire what had become of " some poor devils" 
whom he, the Attorney-General, had sent thither 
for shelter. On their arrival, and demanding of the 
Alguazil on duty where the people in question had 
been lodged, the reply was, " in the court-yard ;" 
but as the man appeared considerably embarrassed, 
the Attorney- General desired to be immediately 
conducted to the place. When within a few yards, 
and their footsteps could be heard by the inmates, 
horrible and deafening shrieks issued. The only 
exclamations to be distinguished were, " For 
mercy's sake open the door ; we are dying ; we 
shall be smothered ; water ! water ! " 

Notwithstanding the peremptory orders of the 
Attorney- General, the Alguazil offered many re- 
monstrances against unbolting the gate, which he 
after all would not do until he had drawn out his 



HORRIBLE OCCURRENCE. 801 

assistants, and properly disposed them to resist the 
attack, which he felt convinced would be made by 
the prisoners. 

The bolts being at length loosened, the scene 
which presented itself could not have been sur- 
passed at the celebrated " Black Hole of Calcutta." 

A large number of miserable negroes, male and 
female, were there jammed so closely together as 
to be unable to move hand or foot ; so jammed, 
that no comparison can afford even a distant con- 
ception, except it be the manner in which planks 
are stowed one upon the other on board a ship. 
Many of them were chained, — many in hand-cuffs, 
— many bound to stocks. 

In vain did the Attorney-General and his com- 
panion endeavour to take a nearer survey of the 
frightful spectacle ; they were forced to rush back 
in haste, such were the stench and steam issuing 
from the den. 

The shrieks, moans, and exclamations became 
more appalling ; the cries, above all, for " water ! 
water!" more incessant, as the wretched creatures 
now began to hope that a deliverance from their 



302 HORRIBLE OCCURRENCE. 

agonies was at hand. A few moments longer 
and they would have been out of the reach of 
human aid — of human torment. 

As soon as they were released from their chains, 
they rushed to the streets panting, to inhale the 
air of heaven ; and, O God ! what a sight it was 
to behold the frensied and convulsive manner in 
which they dashed themselves into the gutters to 
cool their burning frames, and slake their thirst. 

These first wants satisfied, they collected among 
themselves a few pieces of coin ; and one of them 
humbly approaching the jailer, and offering the 
mite, besought that a little bread might be 
granted. So far from entertaining rancour at 
the treatment they had experienced, all their 
feelings were centered in gratitude for theii\ libe- 
ration ; and they .were to be seen struggling to 
embrace the knees of those who had so oppor- 
tunely come to their deliverance. 

I will not dwell on this topic longer than to 
explain, that no absolute criminality attaches to 
the Attorney- General for the part taken by him 
in the transaction ; to do him justice, he was 



HORRIBLE OCCURRENCE. 803 

shocked at the occurrence. It appeared that these 
negroes had come to him in the morning, many 
miles from the country, to learn whether they 
" were free or not." He gave them readily the 
explanation, and advised them to return to their 
homes. They expressed themselves perfectly 
satisfied ; but remarked, that it was then too late, 
considering the distance they would have to travel ; 
and that if he could find them shelter for the 
night, they would be off peaceably the following 
morning early. He gave them a letter to deliver 
at the Police- Office, containing a request to the 
authorities there that the people in question 
should be " taken care of." The result of this 
recommendation has been seen by the reader. 

Except for the nocturnal visit of the Attorney- 
General,' — (whether undertaken with the view of 
simply whiling away an idle hour when "flushed 
with the grape," it is not requisite to seek,) — 
except for this visit, (and he ought ever to bless 
the happy thought which prompted it,) the dead 
bodies alone of these negroes would have met his 
sight on the morrow ! 



304 PREPARATIONS FOR 

Thus ended the 4th of August. 

Sir George Hill received on the morning of 
the 5th the usual report of the perfect tran- 
quillity of the town during the preceding night. 

Colonel Hardy,* likewise, in a letter bearing 
this day's date, conveyed to Lieutenant- Colonel 
Bridgeman, Deputy Adjutant -General of the 
Forces in the West Indies, the intelligence, that 
up to this moment every thing in Trinidad was 
quiet : and moreover, that the assemblages of 
negroes appeared to have been for the greater 
part women. 

At nine o'clock, however, bugles sounded in 
all directions to arms, and the militia assembled in 
battle array. The officer on duty at Government 
House now really began to imagine that some- 
thing serious had occurred ; and hurried to gain 
information, so as to dispose his force accordingly ; 
but finding that all these preparations were for 
the " flogging parade," he returned to his post. 

At nine o'clock Sir George Hill made his ap- 
pearance, surrounded by a numerous staff, and 
* See Note 33. 



THE FLOGGING PARADE. 305 

colonists of all ranks. A deep and mysterious 
consultation seemed to be carrying on in the 
circle about him ; great rivalry existed among the 
different commanders of brigades and battalions, 
as to which should enjoy the privilege of being 
nearest the spot where the free apprentices were 
to be flogged. This consultation was on the re- 
spective claims of each : a point of honour was 
concerned. The anxiety to be close to the tri- 
angles did not originate altogether in a wish to 
gloat as much as possible on the tortures of the 
wretches tied up, but in the heroic one of being 
closest to danger should a rescue be attempted. 

This arranged, the floggings were loudly called 
for : but one more trial was to be made to force 
the regular troops into action ; could this be suc- 
ceeded in, even at the twelfth hour, it would speak 
for the danger in which the colony had been 
placed. 

It was known that Colonel Hardy was at some 
distance from the town, having left the guard 
there under command of Lieutenant Franklin. 
This officer was sent for: it was expected he 



306 FLOGGING PARADE, 

would prove more tractable than his chief, at all 
events more likely to be browbeaten by persons in 
authority. On presenting himself before Sir 
George Hill, his Excellency, who thought to 
carry the point by a coup de main, which would 
have reflected credit on the lower branches of that 
profession once followed by him, thus accosted 
him : — " By the bye, I neglected to issue direc- 
tions for the attendance here to-day of the detach- 
ment under your command : you will be pleased, 
therefore, to bring it up, and to lose no time in 
obeying this my positive order." He then turned 
away, calculating that the presumptuous subal- 
tern would not have dared reply. This young 
officer, although taken by surprise, with a tact 
and discretion beyond his years, after expressing 
deep regret at not " being able to comply on his 
own responsibility with his Excellency's com- 
mands," explained " that he had received positive 
injunctions from his military superiors, to bear in 
mind that his guard was not liable to the call of 
a magistrate short of riot, fire, or tumult; and 
that, above all, provided no breach of the peace 



FLOGGING PARADE. 307 

took place, lie was not to allow his men to assist 
at any punishments." 

He however offered to send for further instruc- 
tions should Sir George Hill so desire. 

Nothing was to be gained by this ; his Excel- 
lency therefore, after angrily desiring that the 
guard should be in readiness to turn out, if any 
disturbance should occur during the infliction of 
the floggings, ordered that no more delay should 
take place, and retired to a convenient distance, 
from whence with telescope in hand, he could 
enjoy a clear view of the stage. 

The triangles were fixed, around them bristled 
cannon of every calibre ; while the entire square was 
thickly studded with battalions. The free appren- 
tices were brought out — stript of their covering — 
tied up. When their bodies had been sufficiently 
mutilated, and exhausted nature could support no 
more, they were loosened from the stakes, and 
dragged back to the dungeon. The troops defiled 
with exultation ; the planters and storekeepers 
congratulated each other on the happy termination 
of the campaign. Calm was restored to the breasts 



308 FLOGGING APPARATUS. 

of their gentle wives and daughters, who, posted at 
the surrounding windows and balconies, had had 
their share of the exquisite spectacle : and thus 
finished the fifth day of freedom. 

It must not be supposed these were the only 
floggings inflicted ; there were many, many others, 
but they were attended with less of the " pride 
and pomp of war." For long after this, the punish- 
ment of apprentices by the lash was daily to be 
witnessed, and was ordered by the Chief of Police, 
one Mr. Benjamin Hughes, (formerly a planter,) 
whom Sir Geore Hill invested with the powers of 
a magistrate for this purpose. These floggings 
usually took place in the Cabildo yard, between 
the hours of six and seven in the morning. Even- 
tually, however, the shrieks of the sufferers having 
lost their novelty, were pronounced disagreeable by 
the neighbourhood, and the apparatus, a wooden 
machine in the form of a crucifix, on which the 
victims were extended, was destroyed, and the 
flagellations removed to another spot. The ne- 
groes, after having undergone these punishments, 
crawled as they could to the respective estates, 



PROBABLE FEARFUL RESULT. 3i)i) 

where they arrived half dead for want of food, and 
where a farther exercise of the " lash" in time re- 
duced them to submission. 

For the heroic services of the militia during this 
crisis, brilliant eulogiums were lavished upon the 
officers, and a gratuity of two and sixpence ster- 
ling, and a pair of shoes, was bestowed upon each 
private engaged. In alluding to these latter, I 
must mention a circumstance, full of matter for 
reflection, namely, that it was the belief of 
many, (and it has been confirmed by what has 
since transpired,) that had martial law been pro- 
claimed, and any large number of negroes massa- 
cred, the militia privates, composed mostly of free 
men of African extraction, would have split into 
two opposite and desperate parties. This terrible 
result appears never for an instant to have crossed 
the mind of Sir George Hill, or his advisers. 

Had it taken place, we may feel assured that 
the flame would have spread from island to island, 
and that a foundation would have been laid for the 
converting the West India possessions of England 
into New St. Domingos. 



310 ASTOUNDING FACT. 

There still remains to be exhibited one more 
fact connected with these proceedings, a fact so 
astounding, that I know not whether to attribute 
it to the extreme of wickness, or to the extreme of 
madness : I will, therefore, without comment, 
leave it to the cool, dispassionate judgment of the 
reader. 

It has been seen that the first of August passed 
off in entire tranquillity among the negroes ; that 
this tranquillity continued on the second, on the 
third, on the fourth, and on the fifth. That the 
commanding officer of the troops daily transmitted 
to His Excellency the Governor, an official report 
of the state of things, formed on his own personal 
observation, and had likewise, on the fifth, con- 
veyed intelligence of the same pacific nature to 
the Governor-General of the West Indies, in a 
letter addressed to the Deputy-Adjutant- General 
of the Forces. 

In the face of this,* Sir George Hill, without 
reference to the officer commanding the forces in 
the island, without his concurrence or knowledge, 

* See Note 34. 



SIR GEORGE HILL, BART. 311 

despatched to Barbadoes a demand for an additional 
body of two hundred troops of the line. 

On the 6th of the month only, did Colonel 
Hardy learn, by general report, that a reinforce- 
ment had been applied for. He then begged to 
know from his Excellency to what extent, and 
whether any preparations had been made for the 
quarters of the same, should it arrive. 

The ultimate result of the whole of this might 
indeed serve to " point a moral, or adorn a tale." 

The Right Honourable Sir George Hill, Bart, 
continues Governor of Trinidad, and has reaped, 
according to fame, both thanks and rewards from 
His Majesty's Government for the judgment, 
energy, and talent displayed by him in crushing 
the fearful insurrection with which the colony con- 
fided to his rule had been menaced ! 

On the other hand, Colonel Hardy, to whom so 
many are indebted that they and their families were 
not massacred ; he to whom England owes, that the 
grand national wish for the abolition of slavery was 
carried into effect, unaccompanied by the blood of 
hundreds, perhaps thousands, remained unnoticed ; 



312 COLONEL HARDY, 

and unrewarded, save by the testimony of an ap- 
proving conscience ; and after having received in 
his own name, and in that of his regiment, every 
species of malignant insult from the sanguinary 
faction which he had thwarted, yielded up his pure 
and noble spirit in the land saved by his exertions, 
and where not even a stone records the spot where 
lie mouldering his earthly remains ! 



ABOLITION ACT FAILED. 813 



CHAPTER XYII. 



Abolition Act failed — Why — Ministers opposed by their own 
Officers — Treacherous Conduct towards the Apprentices — Joseph 
Sturge — Infamies touching the "Compensation" — LordGlenelg's 
proper Conduct — Number of Lashes inflicted — Lord Glenelg on 
the Flogging of the Women — Summary of the whole — Want oi 
Schools and Churches — Trinidad. 



For almost two years after the last chapter was 
written, I had ample opportunity of watching the 
manner in which the apprenticeship system was 
carried on by the planters, and were I called upon 
to give a direct answer to the question, " How has 
the Royal Order in Council of the 5th June, 1834', 
worked ?" I should at once state my conviction, that 
as far as the slave is concerned, his situation has 
not been ameliorated. 

r 



314 ABOLITION ACT FAILED. 

For two years after the Abolition Act, I saw the 
insidious manner in which the humane and well- 
intentioned provisions of that act were evaded or 
neutralized* by local enactments. 



* For example, it was declared that no apprentice should be 
punished by his master, nor by the order of any but a magistrate. 
This was got over thus : a planter dissatisfied with an apprentice, 
immediately sent him to another planter who was a magistrate, to be 
flogged, and this other sent a slave in his turn. 

Few things occasioned more evil than the manner of appointing 
special justices. Thus in Trinidad, frorhlst August, 1834, to 18th 
June, 1835, the apprentices were still subjected to the judicially coer- 
cive authority of their employers, who, to the number of 140, were 
appointed by the Lieutenant-Governor to act as justices, (as his Ex- 
cellency says,) under the act, but which, to my humble reading of the 
same act, was in direct violation of the Parliamentary pledge of his 
Maj esty' s Ministers. Will it not strike the weakest mind that nothing 
could be more unjust or more treacherous, towards the miserable 
negro, than to confide to such men the very power which ought to be 
applied in other hands to restrain them from further oppression ? 
These men had the means of completely thwarting the operation of 
the bill. They, as well as the stipendiaries who came after, invari- 
ably refused to allow apprentices to avail themselves of professional 
aid voluntarily offered in cases brought before them. 

The proceedings were private, except to the parties immediately 
concerned, by which mode of trial the magistrate was effectually 
screened from justice, and the illiterate negro not only left to him- 
self for defence, and generally without being permitted to cite his 
witnesses, but in cases of illegal decisions on ex parte evidence, 
debarred from all redress ; for to say the ordinary tribunals of the 
country are open to a being deprived of his personal liberty by law, 
without the means of litigating, or of obtaining an advocate to un- 
dertake his cause, would be a cruel and insulting piece of mockery 
and hypocrisy. 



OPPOSITION TO MINISTERS. 315 

I witnessed the manner in which in the Char- 
tered Colonies the local legislatures set at defiance 
the government of this country, and in the Crown 
Colonies I saw that those who most violently and 
most effectually opposed the benevolent purposes 
of the Minister of the Crown, were the chief offi- 
cers of the Crown itself. 

I witnessed sufficient to impress upon me, that 
until the present system of local government was 
destroyed root and branch, and an equitable and 
salutary administration established, every thing 
like justice must languish and wither under the 
baneful influence of colonial despotism. 

Upon all of these subjects I had written at large, 
and the result was about to be submitted to the 
public, with minute details of individual acts of 
atrocity which had come to my immediate know- 
ledge, when there was forwarded to me that com- 
plete exposure of colonial iniquities* put forth by 

* The West Indies in 1837. By Joseph Sturge and Thomas 
Harvey. 

This admirable work ought to be in the possession of every one 
who wishes to know what our colonies really are. 

Although it has been before the public nearly twelve months, 
none of the frightful and revolting acts therein detailed have been 

p 2 



316 CONDUCT TO APPRENTICES. 

the humane party, who in 1837 proceeded to the 
West Indies for the purpose of judging, from per- 
sonal observation, of the manner in which the 
apprenticeship system was working. 

I found that the details in this publication were 
so completely the counterparts of those in my own 
manuscript, while at the same time they were 
treated in so much more able, and above all more 
temperate, and consequently more useful style, 
that I resolved to cancel what I had prepared, 
and to confine myself to generalities. 

disproved; on the contrary, every succeeding investigation has 
more and more confirmed its truth. 

It is to be lamented that Sir Lionel Smith should have been in- 
duced to sanction a feeling against Mr. Sturge. It is perfectly true, 
as stated by Sir Lionel to Lord Glenelg, that Mr. Sturge had de- 
clined to dine with him, but surely candour might have induced 
him to add, that when Mr. Sturge respectfully declined the invita- 
tion, he at the same time expressed his readiness to meet his Excel- 
lency in private. That he used a proper discretion in this respect 
is confirmed by the fact, that Mr. W. E. Gladstone, in the House of 
Commons, accused him of accepting the hospitality of the planters, 
and then coming to England to bring charges against them. 

Mr. Gladstone is, without doubt, a highly talented and honour- 
able gentleman, but like many others holding property in the West 
Indies, he evinces extreme sensitiveness whenever the subject is 
introduced, and to use the expressions employed at a meeting held 
at Exeter Hall, " seems to merge the member of Parliament in the 
planter," and appears rather as the advocate of West India interests, 
than a senator to decide between the oppressor and the oppressed. 



THE COMPENSATION. 317 

It became very soon evident that the colonists 
had no intention whatever of employing the inter- 
val between the apprenticeship and the entire 
freedom of their former slaves, in allaying and re- 
conciling animosities, or in creating a foundation 
for feelings of mutual kindness between the whites 
and the blacks. They shewed themselves de- 
termined to forget that the sole reason why imme- 
diate freedom was not granted to the slaves when 
the loan of fifteen millions sterling was converted 
into a costly gift* of twenty, was based upon the 



* Many acts of infamy were committed in respect to this com- 
pensation. Wealthy planters bought up at one-third, or one- fourth 
of their value, the claims upon the government for compensation, 
by poor ignorant people, whose entire property consisted in two, 
three, or four slaves. 

On this, however, reaching the ears of Lord Glenelg, he, with a 
promptitude which reflects honour on him as a man, took steps to 
prevent these sales from being confirmed by the Courts of Law. 
Many thousands have to thank Lord Glenelg for having saved 
them from utter ruin. The annexed extract from a letter now be- 
fore me, will convey an idea of the system. 

" Trinidad. 

" The Secretary for this colony has become a defaulter for 
40,000 dollars. 

" It is said that persons high in office are implicated in this trans- 
action ; they having persuaded the Secretary to permit them to 
speculate with the money in the treasury chest, in cajoling poor 
ignorant people out of their claims for compensation, persuading 



318 NUMBER OF 

notion that an intermediate period of conciliation 
and education was requisite to enable the slaves 
to receive the boon of freedom with becoming 
sobriety. 

These principles were incessantly and strongly 
urged by this government in all its despatches, 
counsels, and remonstrances addressed to the dif- 
ferent colonies. 

So far from any attention being vouchsafed to 
them, the planters began to show that to the 
former motives which actuated them in their op- 
pression of the slaves, were now added feelings of 
deep revenge, and that they were resolved to 
exercise the utmost ingenuity for the purpose of 
inflicting torture upon their fellow-creatures. 

The immediate effect was a frightful addition to 
the miseries of the negro population. 

In twenty-two months from the coming into 
force of the Abolition Act, no less than five hun- 
dred and seventy-four thousand one hundred and 

these latter that the chance of payment from the British Govern- 
ment was very remote. 

" The treasury chest was examined in pursuance of a peremptory 
order from home, and before the deficit could be made good." 



LASHES INFLICTED. 319 

seventy-five lashes were inflicted on the bodies of 
the apprentices, besides punishments of other de- 
scriptions to the amount of 104,165.* 

It should be remembered, that although these 
numbers are taken from Parliamentary papers, it 
is to be presumed the punishments were far more 
numerous, as the returns were extremely de- 
fective. 

In Trinidad for example, the records of punish- 
ment affecting four judicial districts, comprising 
a population of 8,510 apprenticed labourers, are 
lost, and in Dominica the returns were made 
from two special justices only, although they were 
during the other months usually made from six. 

Surely the most prejudiced mind must admit 
that these dreadful punishments could not have 
been called for by necessity, but must have been 
inflicted solely from vindictive feelings, when it is 
known that at this very time there existed abun- 
dant prooff of the general good conduct of the 



* This includes Jamaica. 

f Vide Proceedings of a Select Committee of the House of Com- 
mons, 28th March, 1836. 



320 LORD GLENELG. 

apprenticed labourers, and of their perfect willing- 
ness to work. 

But independently of these recorded punish- 
ments by the lash, thousands of lashes were 
inflicted, and upon females too, which could not 
be inserted in the returns, They were given in 
the prisons, and came under the head of jail dis- 
cipline. 

Many will be prepared to offer an indignant 
denial to this part of the volume ; I cannot there- 
fore do better than transcribe the sentiments of 
Lord Glenelg upon this subject. 

Thus in the House of Peers does his Lordship 
express himself : " That provision of the act which 
forbade females being lashed for apprenticeship 
offences has been set at defiance ; it had been 
scorned and contemned by the injustice and the 
revenge of the former masters of those unhappy 
slaves. And who do your Lordships suppose had 
been selected for the purpose of inflicting cruelty 
in the Houses of Correction ? Why, the class of 
men selected were the very men who should not 
have been chosen ; they were convicts for life, 



FLOGGING OF WOMEN. 321 

men dead to all sense of honour, of feeling, of hu- 
manity; these were the men who did not refuse to 
apply the lash to females, who entered into a vile 
combination with their employers to glut the evil 
passions of both. They who indulged these aspi- 
rations of vengeance were lost to all thoughts of 
happiness, of hope, and of respect for themselves. 
In spite of the law, females had the lash applied 
to them for apprenticeship offences." 

This must be decisive as to the conciliation 
practised by the colonists ; I will therefore only 
detain the reader for one moment longer upon the 
subject, for the purpose of presenting the powerful 
summary of the entire system, as given in an ex- 
tremely interesting publication, entitled, " Negro 
Apprenticeship in the British Colonies." 

It is now ascertained that in the workhouses, 
and other places of confinement, the most ordinary 
sympathies, the most common decencies, the most 
imperative necessities of humanity, have been 
systematically outraged by monsters, to whom the 
" tender mercy " of colonial functionaries has en- 
trusted the administration of these judicial tortures. 
p 3 



3Z2 SUMMARY. 

Women in an advanced stage of pregnancy, 
mothers with infants at the breast, young girls, 
sick and aged apprentices of both sexes, have been 
consigned, on the slightest pretexts, to those dens 
of outrage and pollution. While there, they have 
been compelled to perform the terrific labours of 
the tread-mill, and of the penal gang, beneath the 
lash of prison drivers, who are themselves frequently 
convicts for life ; they have been subjected more- 
over to " cruel mockings and scourgings ;" they 
have been inhumanly lacerated and bruised ; they 
have been loaded with galling chains and collars ; 
they have been wantonly shorn of their hair;* 
their persons have been indecently exposed, and 
treated with needless indignities ; they have been 
deprived of proper nourishment and attendance, 
and even of the consolations of the ministers of 
religion ; some of the younger females have been 
tempted to escape these barbarities by surrender- 
ing themselves to the brutal passions of their 
drivers ; while others have preferred torture, " not 

* This is a most dreadful punishment in these climates ; it leaves 
the skull unprotected, exposed to the rays of a tropical sun. 



SUMMARY. 323 

accepting such deliverance." In a word, no pains 
have been spared to aggravate the terrors of in> 
prisonment. At the termination of the ordeal, 
the miserable sufferers have, in some instances, 
been dismissed, covered with putrefying sores ; 
several persons have actually expired from the 
effect of these frightful tortures ; and others 
have only recovered from wounds inflicted by 
the cat and the mill, and from the exhausting- 
effects of prison discipline, after long treatment in 
hospitals, where they have been again exposed to 
all the additional suffering which heartlessness and 
neglect could inflict upon them. 

Those who may not have perused " Williams's 
Narrative," are counselled to do so; they will 
there see the greater part of the above summary 
detailed. 

This narrative was investigated by a Commis- 
sion, who admitted its truth in every point. 

Now let us examine whether the colonists have 
acted more mercifully in respect to educating their 
apprentices, than they have done in conciliating 
them. 



324 WANT OF CHURCHES 

Strangers arriving at the chief towns in the 
colonies, better known as the seats of government, 
and perceiving a fair proportion of schools, are apt 
to imagine that such is the case throughout the 
island. Nothing can be more erroneous than this ; 
for although on a few estates in the interior, schools 
may have been permitted, yet on the generality 
the owners have virulently opposed the introduc- 
tion of any system of education. I have carefully 
and most conscientiously examined into this par- 
ticular subject, and truth compels me to declare 
that no improvement (beyond what existed at the 
time the Abolition Act came into force,) either 
moral, social, or religious, has been attempted by 
the planters ; they have obstinately resisted all 
suggestions of the government to introduce a sys- 
tem of education among the negroes, and no one 
single measure of colonial legislation can be quoted 
in any -way tending to the improvement of the 
negro. 

As the island of Trinidad is one of the largest and 
most important, and one likely at a future day to 
perform a very conspicuous part, a description of the 



AND SCHOOLS. 325 

system there will be sufficient to enable the reader 
to judge as to the condition of the remainder. 

As to the Protestant establishments, there is 
but one place of worship of the Church of Eng- 
land, and a Methodist chapel, both in Port of 
Spain. At San Fernando, a village in the district 
of Naporima, thirty miles down the coast, a 
Methodist missionary is preaching the gospel, but 
under such persecutions that it is much to be 
feared he will be compelled to desist. 

In the intervening district, although thickly 
inhabited, there is not a single church. The colo- 
nists complain a good deal of the Bishop of Bar- 
badoes having abandoned the colony as past 
redemption ; this accusation is worthy of the com- 
munity. . The fact is, the Bishop has often sent 
clergymen, and volunteered to send more, indeed as 
many as might be required ; but the inhabitants have 
constantly refused to make any provision for them, 
owing to which they have seen themselves forced, 
overwhelmed with difficulties, to quit the island.* 

* From this neglect of the Protestants, Catholicism has much 
increased, and if that creed is to be the general one, I would 
strongly suggest that in the selection of priests the preference 



326 WANT OF SCHOOLS. 

In respect to schools, whenever any have been 
projected in the town by private individuals, the 
apprentices have been as much as possible pre- 
vented from attending. 

The two national schools, formed some years 
ago by Sir Ralph Woodford, have been suffered to 
go into decay ; and with regard even to these, it is 
worthy of remark, as showing that the firmness of 
Woodford was obliged sometimes to yield to the 
slavery party, that one of the fundamental rules 
still unrepealed is, that none but free persons 
could be admitted. 

In the town there is a school, to the support of 
which the Bishop of Barbadoes gives £50, but 
there are only twenty children of apprenticed 
labourers who are included in the number of its 
scholars. There is likewise a small school lately 
got up by the Protestant rector, the Rev. Mr. 
Cummins, who, by the bye, being a humane and 
enlightened man, has received considerable perse- 
cution from the dominant party. 

should invariably be given to British subjects ; as foreign ones, 
especially French from Martinique and Guadaloupe, are the very 
last who should be introduced into a British settlement. 



TRINIDAD. 327 

There is nothing besides these under the protec- 
tion of the Established Church. 

A fair number, however, of apprentices derive 
benefit from the Methodist Sunday schools, as well 
as from the Rev. Padre di Quiros, of the Separia 
mission, who has much exerted himself in endea- 
vouring to educate the negroes. Don Alfonso, a 
learned Spaniard, curate of San Juan, about five 
miles from Port of Spain, keeps a school at his own 
expense for bond and free. There is likewise the 
Rev. Abbe Power, who, by means of subscriptions 
from the coloured inhabitants, has established a 
school and chapel for the negroes ; he, I grieve to 
say, has been much opposed, not only by the 
planters, which was to be expected, but even by 
his own diocesan, the resident Roman-catholic 
bishop, Dr. M'Donnell, who appears strongly to 
object to the poor being taught. 

I would now request the reader to pause, and 
ask himself whether the colonists are doing any 
thing to remove the obstacles to the safe and 
effectual introduction of entire freedom ; whether 
there exists any probability of the negroes being 



32$ WANT OF SCHOOLS. 

more fitted for the boon in 1840 than they were 
in 1834; and above all, if the experiment should 
prove a failure, to whom must be traced the cause ; 
— to the negro, who cheerfully and faithfully per- 
formed every part of his contract; or to the 
planter, who systematically and treacherously has 
violated every pledge, given or implied by him 
when he received the sacrifice so nobly made by 
the people of England ? 



A POLITICAL DISSERTATION. 329 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Political Dissertation on the now altered Condition of the Blacks — 
Duties of this Country towards her Free Black Citizens — How 
to be performed — Great Points for Consideration — All depends 
on the People — Hints to the Emancipationists — Conclusion. 

The anticipations and assertions so repeatedly 
expressed in the foregoing pages, of the utter and 
undoubted failure of the apprenticeship system, 
have, since they were written, and while they were 
already in preparation for the press, been amply 
realized by the event. The system no longer 
exists. The apprentices are free men. The last 
remnant of slavery has been extirpated in the 
West Indies! 

Had the writer's views extended no further than 
what is called immediate abolition, he would have 



330 ALTERED CONDITION 

abstained from offering to the public any argument 
in support of a foregone conclusion. 

Doubtless it is a great and glorious triumph 
that has already been achieved in the cause of 
religion and humanity, and it is one too for which 
we ought to be grateful to Him in whose name 
chiefly that triumph was sought for ; but however 
much we may rejoice at it as the reward of past 
exertions, we ought still more to be cheered by 
it as an earnest of future success. For to ima- 
gine that the contest is now over, and that the 
friends of the negro may throw up their task 
as accomplished, as if, because the last links 
of his personal servitude were now broken, he 
might safely or properly be left to the public 
care and superintendence of such rulers as I have 
described, is grievously to underrate the duties 
of this country towards the negro portion of its 
subjects, and to overrate just as much the fitness 
and the disposition of the colonists to enter 
rightly upon their new functions, no longer 
now of masters or owners, but of governors and 
guardians. 



OF THE BLACKS. 331 

If, indeed, it was in a spirit of willing acqui- 
escence that they had anticipated the determination 
of this country, we might hope that they would 
for the future endeavour to conform to its policy ; 
or if they had as yet shown in their public capacity 
(to omit all mention of their conduct as individuals) 
the slightest symptoms of kindness or of justice 
towards their black fellow-citizens, we might not 
be unwilling to trust them uncontrolled with the 
direction of their now altered destinies ; but what 
was it but the apparent determination of this 
country no longer to be trifled with in this matter, 
that has forced them to this act of ungracious and 
unpromising submission? And what was it that 
elicited from us in England the expression of such 
resolve, but the flagrant and audacious manner in 
which they had, in the most recent instance, abused 
our ill-judged forbearance, and the unmitigated 
system of oppression, which they continued to 
uphold under a new name and by a weaker title ? 
Are we then to suppose that if the change from 
slavery to apprenticeship has not been productive 
of good, that the mere naked boon of freedom will 



332 ALTERED CONDITION 

be all-sufficient of itself to heal the wounds in- 
flicted as much by the late tyranny of masters as 
by the previous cruelty of owners, and to repair the 
breach which the experiment of apprenticeship has 
but tended to widen ? Are we, in a word, to be- 
lieve that because the colonial legislatures have, 
with a sort of equivocal spontaneity, dubbed the 
negro free, they therefore intend to treat him as a 
free man ; that is to say, as one equally entitled 
with the more favoured and exalted caste, to the 
benefit of impartial laws, and requiring more than 
they do the fostering and paternal care of his 
rulers I 

There is something no less suspicious than sur- 
prising in this unaccustomed alacrity of conces- 
sion, this sudden and unaccountable freak of 
colonial kindness and generosity. One is loth, 
indeed, to impute to one's fellow-creatures the 
conception of so nefarious a project as seeking 
to turn their own gift against the breasts of 
those to whom it is given ; but it is difficult 
not to suspect that there may be something of 
a lurking hope, if not the actual wish, that the 



OF THE BLACKS. 333 

very suddenness of the compliance may defeat 
the objects of the demand, and that the name of 
negro freedom may be discredited, and the thing 
itself, perhaps, rejected as a chimera, from the 
failure of an unprepared experiment. Not indeed 
that they can possibly entertain so wild a notion 
as that personal slavery in all its horrors, and 
with its hideous name, will ever again be restored 
in any place where England rules ; but it is 
possible, if the colonists are " left to themselves" * 
as they modestly ask to be, in the management of 
this great trust, — it is possible that oppressive 
laws,f such as they will then be free to make, may 
supply the place of tyrannical ownership; and 



* See late Address of the Jamaica House of Assembly. 

f The avowed object of the colonists at present is to obtain 
vagrant, police, and control laws. We must keep a sharp look 
out on these points. No man should be deemed a vagrant till he 
had committed some offence against society ; and all should be 
allowed to go where they judge best, to sell what they choose, and 
to engage themselves to any master they think fit, without any pass 
or permit from any authority whatever. 

Can we feel surprise if the negroes, now they are free, should 
wish to quit the estates where they have been barbarously treated, 
where every thing reminds them of their former misery, where the 
trees are yet clotted with their blood, and where the valleys yet 
resound with their shrieks ? Surely no one will contend that they 



334 ALTERED CONDITION 

though one man shall no longer be bought and sold 
by another in open market, yet that the negro por- 
tion of the people in each colony shall be treated 
and used by the white as their collective property, 
to be cared for only in proportion to their produc- 
tiveness, to be legislated for only with a view to 
their repression. Surmises even worse than these, 
as to the intentions of the dominant party in the 
colonies, might well be justified by a consideration 
of their past conduct. 

We have seen in what way and in what spirit 
the last great boon of this country (for such it was 
intended to be) was ushered in to the acceptance 
of the negroes, and we well know that the manner 
in which it continued to be doled out was truly 
worthy of such threatening and malevolent 
auspices. 

We have seen by what arts and by what influ- 
ences the planters contrived to make subservient 



should not have the privilege of removing themselves to other spots. 
This, however, the colonists will strive to prevent by a code of 
vagrant laws. 

It would also be well that no contract for labour should be bind- 
ing more than a month. 



OF THE BLACKS. SS5 

to their will the magistrates who had been specially 
appointed for the protection of the negro, and 
how, having converted them, or most of them, into 
instruments,* willing or unwilling, of their tyranny, 
they continued to perpetuate, with their assistance, 
the very same species of cruelties, and almost to 
the same extent which they themselves were, by 
the terms of the new law, (which, by the bye, was 
frequently infringed,) debarred from inflicting by 
their own authority. 

But what is above all to be remembered at the 
present time, is the indifference, or as it has more 
often been, the hostility, with which they have 
hitherto encountered all attempts that have been 
made to prepare the negro by education for his 
altered lot. "What then from these facts are 
we to expect from the colonists if left to them- 
selves, or in what way will they effect the ac- 
complishment of that great change of which they 

* Never let it be forgotten by the people of England, that in two 
years of the administration of the special magistrates in Jamaica, 
60,000 apprentices received in the aggregate one quarter of a 
million of lashes ; and 50,000 other punishments, by the tread- 
mill, chain gang, &c. 



336 ALTERED CONDITION 

have thus neglected the preparation ? Can we 
doubt but that the same policy, so to call it, which 
has disgraced their past conduct, will also set its 
stamp upon their future proceedings, and that the 
same spirit of unvarying hostility, of unreasoning 
contempt, which the negro suffered under in 
slavery, and which did not relax during his ap- 
prenticeship, awaits him also in his state of 
freedom ? And what are we to expect as to the 
result ? Why, not only that nothing will be done 
to meet the new emergency as it should be met, 
but that, if the planters should succeed in lulling 
by their seeming liberality the watchfulness of 
this country, a systematic attempt will be made by 
them to neutralize the boon which they have as- 
sumed to dispense, and to bring back the negro, 
by a praedial code of coercion, to a state very 
nearly resembling that of personal slavery ;* or if 
they should fail in that project, is it doing them 
much injustice to suppose that they will seek to 
bring about by means more or less violent, by a 

* No legal difficulties should be thrown in the way of the negro 
buying small quantities of land, and he should not be turned out of 
his cottage or garden, without at least six months' notice. 



I 



OF THE BLACKS. 337 

process more or less gradual, the extinction* of a 
race which they can no longer, if I may coin such 
an expression, utilize in their own way, and with 
whom it is true they cannot exist in safety, un- 
less they be either their slaves, or I will speak the 
word, their equals ?f 

Of one thing at any rate we may be certain, that 
the same defective machinery, the same corrupt 
administration, by which the negro was debarred 
from his just rights as an apprentice, will equally 



* " In Demerara, in 1832, the number of negroes above six years 
of age were 76,000; in 1834, they had diminished 3,500. 

"From 1817 to 1832, the physical strength of the negroes was re- 
duced 23,644 : one-fourth of the colony destroyed in fifteen years. 

" On seventeen estates in Demerara there were 1,304 males, and 
1,169 females, with only 319 children under nine years of age. On 
a moderate computation there ought to have been from 800 to 900. 

" The alarm at this decrease was very great, but this will be in- 
creased if the colonists are allowed to introduce Coolies from 
Hindostan ; for as long as the planters can calculate upon the cul- 
tivation of the estates by the importation of adult labourers, they 
will have no inducement to take care of the offspring of the ne- 
groes." — Extract from the eloquent Speech delivered by F. Scoble, Esq. 
at Exeter Hall, April 4sth, 1838. 

f Perhaps too they might look for a fresh supply of bondsmen, 
not to say slaves, from the new traffic in human flesh which has 
been opened in another quarter of the globe ; but there too must 
we trust that the humanity of England, influenced and directed as 
it has been by one from whose eye and from whose tongue nothing 
les, will disappoint their hopes. 



S38 DUTIES OF ENGLAND 

fail to secure him his just rights as a free man; and 
we should bear in mind as to this point, that in 
proportion as he has acquired more right, he is 
open to more wrongs; that in proportion as he 
has been thrown more upon his own means, and is 
more dependent upon legal protection,* will he 
suffer more, in his property at least, from the im- 
perfections, the partialities, the expensiveness of 
law. We should remember too that however 
fairly he may be dealt with, yet that the change 
has not been one to him of pure advantage,f and 
in particular that the same act which released him 
from all personal dependence on the planter, has 
exonerated the latter from the obligation under 
which he was laid of supporting those whose youth 
and strength had been worn out in his service. It 
would be too much to expect that the munificence 



* It is of the last importance that in all future colonial legisla- 
tion, the onus probandi should in every case be thrown upon the 
accuser, and that all should be presumed innocent till proved to be 
guilty. 

f Formerly the slave could recover any debt due to him, by a 
summary process free of expense, but this was done away with even 
during the apprenticeship, except in cases arising out of contracts 
for work. 



TOWARDS THE BLACKS. 339 

of colonial legislatures should supply the gap thus 
made by the withdrawal of private assistance. 

What then are we to conclude from all this as 
to the present duties of this country towards this 
much injured class of our fellow-subjects ? Wiry, 
that the obligation of these duties, so far from 
having expired, or being discharged, has become 
on the contrary more than ever binding and im- 
perative ; or that if it has lost any thing in inten- 
sity by the blotting out of the crying sin of actual 
slavery, it has acquired on the other hand a com- 
plexity and a reach, which it never before pos- 
sessed, from the new relations that have been 
created, the great experiment that is to be tried. 
It is indeed a great, and as yet altogether a novel 
experiment, and it is one which every lover of 
humanity, every follower of the Christian faith, 
must view with feelings of anxious interest. It is 
an experiment, how far the black portion of man- 
kind, whom, degraded as they have hitherto been, 
we yet see to be endowed with the same faculties, 
whom we believe to be possessed of the same 
souls, and partakers of the same high hopes with 



340 DUTIES OF ENGLAND 

ourselves, are capable of being raised to the same 
level, by the fostering hand of a Christian Govern- 
ment. But if this experiment, mighty as it is, and 
in its results of a most awful import, is ever to be 
fairly and successfully tried, it is now and by us ; 
for in the first instance, it is but too evident, even 
if we had not the painful experience of our colonial 
history to warn and to instruct us, that when a 
white and a black race are cooped up together 
within the same limits, but with all, or almost all 
the powers of government* in the hands of the 
former, all idea of benevolent, or even of equal 
legislation towards the latter is utterly out of the 
question. The prejudices of colour are too strong, 
the juxta-position of unfriendly elements is too 
close, the irritation that ensues is too constant, to 
admit of such a hope ; nor will time, which has 
obliterated in many other countries the enmity 
between the dominant and the subject race, by the 
intermingling of their stocks, be ever sufficient of 



* This would naturally happen in the absence of all foreign con- 
trolling power from the present difference in civilization between 
the two races. 



TOWARDS THE BLACKS* 841 

itself to put an end to this conflict. For while the 
mark of distinction remains undisguised, and each 
man carries his pedigree written upon his fore- 
head, each successive period of unjust dominion 
will but add a prescriptive title to the tyranny 
which it has continued, and the longer the negro 
will have been oppressed, or to say the least of it, 
depressed, the more deeply rooted will become the 
notion of a right so to use those who from time 
immemorial have never been known to exist in 
any other condition. 

It is quite clear, then, that the only chance of 
equal legislation being dealt out between the two 
races thus placed in contact with each other, the 
only chance of the negro deriving that benefit which 
he is capable of deriving from being a member of 
a civilized and Christian community, consists in 
this — that the supreme power of government re- 
sides in a distant state, beyond the reach of those 
sinister and disturbing influences which prevail 
upon the spot. In this case England is such a 
state with reference to its colonies; and if England, 
with greater means of carrying its purposes into 



342 DUTIES OF ENGLAND 

effect than any other country ever possessed, with a 
clearer knowledge of its duties than any other 
country was ever blessed with, should yet shrink 
from the duty which is now cast upon it, how 
slender is the hope that any other country, more 
enlightened, more liberal, more religious, and at 
the same time no less powerful than we are, should 
be found to our disgrace to do that which we 
ought to have done, and which we cannot leave 
undone without conveying to future ages an im- 
pression most fatal to the negro, — that having done 
so much, we only stopped there, because we 
thought that to do more was impracticable. 

This, then, is the position in which we are 
placed; this the responsibility which we have 
voluntarily taken upon ourselves; this the task, 
to the performance of which we have deeply 
pledged our honour and our conscience. 

For every boon that we have as yet dealt out, 
though with a slow and sparing hand, conveys 
with it, if rightly understood, a pledge that 
we will not stop there; and all that we have 
as yet done amounts only to this — that the 



TOWARDS THE BLACKS. 343 

negroes, released from all other ties, and debarred 
from all other claims, are become fit subjects for 
the laws, and the laws only, to protect and to 
provide for, to civilize and to raise. 

We have brought them and ourselves into this 
dilemma : that they must either be qualified, and 
that without delay, to become useful, intelligent, 
and obedient citizens, or they must be doomed 
again to abject, hopeless, and eternal slavery. 
The only other alternative, and it is one from 
which even the planters of Jamaica would shrink, 
is the utter extinction of the race. 

The question, then, to be resolved is, in what 
way is the duty of this country to be discharged ? 

The Writer of these pages would be stepping 
out of his province, if he should attempt to point 
out every particular enactment, every special regu- 
lation, that is requisite to carry out to its legiti- 
mate consequences the great measure of abolition ; 
he will, therefore, content himself with indicating 
the chief objects to be had in view, and generally 
the means by which they may be attained. 

The first great point is the securing to the 



344 GREAT POINTS 

negro the full enjoyment of those new rights to 
which he has been called by law. For this end it 
is abundantly proved, by what has been before 
said, that, in the first instance, is required a tho- 
rough reform in the magistracy, whereby it shall 
become more honest and more independent ; and 
generally a more equal* and incorrupt admini- 
stration of the law in all its branches. 

The next great point to be attended to is the 
moral improvement and elevation of the negro, as 
well by schools provided at the public expense of 
the colonies, as by promoting among them, as far 
as it may be done by law, those habits and feelings 
which are at once the great end, and the most 
active means of civilization. I allude more parti- 
cularly to the encouragement of marriage, and 
discouragement of illicit intercourse among the 
negroes, which has hitherto been more than con- 
nived at by their immediate masters and rulers. 

The third great point, to which the attention 
of the country should be forcibly and permanently 

* Jurymen should be selected without distinction of colour; 
and, above all, the law should be made cheaper, as its dearness 
very much adds to the inequality between white and black. 



FOR CONSIDERATION. 34>5 

directed, and which follows as a natural corollary 
from the other two, is to extend to the negro a 
fair share in the power* and in the honours of 
that government of which he is suhject. Such a 
pretension will elicit, no doubt, an indignant sneer 
from those who, according to their own notion, 
and in one sense of the word, represent the whole 
humanity of the colonies ; and if the decision of 
the matter were left in their hands, a sneer would 
be, no doubt, the only answer it would meet with. 
But, however monstrous and intolerable may ap- 
pear in their eyes the idea of a negro sitting in 
the House of Assembly, or, worse still, perhaps 
in the council-room of the " Illustrious Cabildo,"f 

* I am most decidedly of opinion that the elective franchise 
should be given to all negroes who can read and write, and who 
understand the first four rules of arithmetic. 

I am well aware that Lord Sligo thinks that no good will ever be 
done under colonial legislation ; and perhaps no man's opinion 
should carry greater weight, considering the opportunities he has 
had of forming a sound one : still, looking to Trinidad, Demerara, 
and the Mauritius, (all Crown colonies,) I am inclined to fear that 
little good can be done without it; and I cannot help thinking 
that, if all classes were properly represented, the local legislatures 
and local tribunals would then be the best safeguards of the 
people's liberty and general welfare. 

f This is a municipal body, self-elected, in the island of Trini- 
dad, and arrogates to itself powers independent of the Crown. It 

q3 



346 GREAT POINTS 

it is far more monstrous, far more intolerable, that 
the immense majority of the free citizens in a 
state should be without representatives of their 
own caste, and their own choosing, to take their 
place among its rulers : and if patience under 
injury be any pledge of moderation in better for- 
tune ; or if a lively sense of gratitude, for which 
the negro is perhaps beyond all other men dis- 
tinguished, be at all akin to justice; there may be 
worse senators and worse magistrates to be found 
in our colonies, than might be supplied from the 
coloured people they now contain. 

At any rate, what means the gift of complete 
enfranchisement, if those to whom it is extended 
are for ever to be shut out from all the common 
paths of honourable competition ? * and what 
prospect is there of moral elevation in those to 

is composed of men who have emerged from the lower walks of life, 
most of whom have dipped their hands deep in slavery, and all 
linked to the system by which they have thriven. 

* Even the Spanish government, more than fifty years ago, used 
to allow rank of every description in the militia to black men ; and 
I have perused numerous commissions to this effect, all specifying 
that they had been granted for good and tried service. 

I am forced to confess that, as yet, Trinidad has every reason 
to lament that she did not remain under Spanish rule. 



FOR CONSIDERATION. 347 

whom the brand of public distrust shall continue 
to attach, and the imputed incapacity for any but 
the most servile employments ? Or, to put the 
case on more selfish grounds, what hope is there 
that men shall become useful, industrious, and 
obedient citizens, from whom the ordinary rewards 
of industry and good conduct shall for ever be 
withheld ? 

Such is the bare outline of that great scheme of 
improvement, which this country has bound itself 
either to carry, or to see carried, into effect. It 
would indeed be idle to hope, in the furtherance 
of this scheme, for any thing in the shape of cor- 
dial cooperation from the colonial legislatures; 
but the pledge of England is not to be forfeited 
because some of her dependencies are unwilling to 
assist in its redemption ; nor should we find any 
valid excuse for the non-performance of our duties 
in any such opposition as we have the power 
effectually and without difficulty to put down. 

In the prosecution of this great work, the pre- 
judices and the selfishness of planters must not be 
allowed to stand in our way ; even their chartered 



348 GREAT POINTS 

rights must, if necessary, be put aside : and what- 
ever changes, if any, in the constitution of our 
colonies, as well as whatever reforms in their 
administration, shall be required, to make them fit 
instruments of our purpose, those changes must be 
made — ^those reforms must be brought about. 

The only question that yet remains, is how far 
the government of this country is prepared of its 
own accord to take upon itself, and to prosecute 
with fitting zeal, the fulfilment of this task, and 
to discharge the weighty duties of redress and 
amelioration which England still owes to that un- 
happy race, which was in the first instance kid- 
napped and enslaved at our instigation, and has 
ever since been in many ways ill used, oppressed, 
and tortured with our knowledge and connivance. 

Far be it from me to detract in any way from 
the character of the present Ministry, still less 
to withhold from them that praise which is due 
to them for the general liberality of their mea- 
sures, and their prevailing disposition to do justice 
to all men; but we must not expect from any 
Ministry, nor from the majority of any Parliament, 



FOR CONSIDERATION. 349 

that they should lend any thing bnt a bare passive 
concurrence to any plans not immediately bearing 
upon some nearer or more material interest, and not 
essentially conducive to the triumph or establish- 
ment of the party to which they belong ; and al- 
though it might be too much to say that in matters 
of legislation, all great and generous ideas emanate 
from the people, yet it is from the people alone 
that they derive that fervour of zeal, and that in- 
tegrity of purpose, which are required for their 
final realization. 

It is to the people then that we must look in 
this instance, and more particularly to that portion 
or party among them, if we may fairly call by that 
name those whose objects are so far above the 
ordinary objects of party, — it is to them I say who 
have virtually done all that yet has been done, 
that we must look for the accomplishment of all, 
(which is the greater part) that yet remains to be 
done. To that party then I would say in conclu- 
sion, Let them go on as they have begun, and 
the same success that has attended their past en- 
deavours, will also wait upon their future labours. 



350 HINTS TO EMANCIPATIONISTS. 

Let them continue, as they have pledged themselves 
to do, and as they have done in one memorable 
instance,* in a spirit more pure than patriotism, 
more holy than mere human benevolence, to make 
this the paramount object of their public endea- 
vours, the indispensable condition of their political 
confidence, and it cannot be but that nicely 
balanced as the two great parties of the state now 
are, whichever is for the time at the helm, wil- 
lingly or perforce must fall into their views. Let 
them only not fear to use their power so lately 
tried, let them only not shrink from their new 
responsibilites, nor draw back from the perform- 
ance of their increased, though altered duties, and 
that great experiment which we said before was 
to be tried, and which it cannot be too often 
repeated this country has undertaken to try, shall 
be made under their auspices, and to their honour ; 
the experiment I mean of civilizing and raising the 
black to the level even of the white. 

What may be the issue of this mighty attempt 

* The late Gloucestershire election, where the candidate was re- 
jected, because he would not pledge himself to immediate abolition. 



CONCLUSION. 351 

is known only to Him who has created both, and 
who scans with an unerring eye the capabilities of 
each ; but to them, that is, to the Emancipationists 
of Great Britain, will belong the praise of having 
made the trial ; and when that trial has been made, 
but not till then, they will have done what man 
could do, to vindicate, in the person of the degraded 
African, the dignity of the human race, and the 
more glorious equality of the Christian brother- 
hood.* 

* Since this chapter was written, I have been favoured with the 
perusal of an address preparing for presentation to Lord Glenelg. 
As the intentions I have attributed to the colonists are more clearly 
developed and defined in this address, I am convinced that it will 
be acceptable to the reader to have the substance of it placed before 
him. 

It is pressed upon the notice of his Lordship, that although the 
local legislatures have terminated the existence of slavery, yet the 
legislative acts which preceded it, and which had in view its termi- 
nation, as well as those measures which accompanied and succeeded 
it, manifestly display a fixed determination to coerce labour under 
the new system, and as much as possible to bring the negro free- 
man under the tyranny of his old master. 

The address proceeds to state, that in a recent publication on 
" The Permanent Laws of the Emancipated Colonies," under- 
stood to be drawn up by a gentleman of great legal ability, of high 
character, and of unquestionable accuracy, it is demonstrated, that 
the laws which were to come into operation immediately on the ex- 
piration of the apprenticeship are of the most objectionable charac- 
ter, and " fully establish the fact, not only of a future intention to 
infringe the rights of the emancipated classes, but of the actual 
commencement and extensive progress of a colonial system for 



352 CONCLUSION. 

that purpose." The object of the laws on which he animadverts, is 
to circumscribe the market for free labour — to prohibit the pos- 
session or sale of ordinary articles of produce or sale, the obvious 
intention of which is to confine the emancipated classes to a course 
of agricultural servitude — to give the employers a monopoly of 
labour, and to keep down a free competition for wages — to create 
new and various modes of apprenticeship for the purpose of pro- 
longing prgedial service, together with many evils of the late system 
— to introduce unnecessary restraints and coercion, the design of 
which is to create a perpetual surveillance over the liberated ne- 
groes, and to establish a legislative despotism. The several laws 
passed are based upon the most vicious principles of legislation, 
and in their operation will be found intolerably oppressive, and en- 
tirely subversive of the just intentions of the British Legislature. 

The militia laws are open to the most serious objections, not only 
as imposing onerous duties and expenses on those least able to bear 
them, but as totally unnecessary for the preservation of the public 
peace. 

The trespass laws of the colonies are most cruelly constructed, 
and may become great engines of oppression under the new system, 
whilst those which respect offences against persons and property, 
are open to the worst description of abuse. 

The emigration laws are framed not on the principle of protect- 
ing the ignorant and unsuspecting labourers against the frauds which 
might be practised on them by interested individuals ; but on the 
principle of protecting the interests of proprietors in the old and 
comparatively impoverished colonies, from which the labouring 
classes might be tempted to depart in search of higher wages, and 
superior comforts. 

The committee terminate their address by begging to assure 
Lord Glenelg, that they rely with confidence on Her Majesty's 
Government, that they will, in the legitimate exercise of the high 
powers with which they are invested, perfect the great work of ne- 
gro freedom, and allow only such measures to become the perma- 
nent laws of the colonies, as shall secure to the emancipated slaves, 
in the fullest sense, the unrestricted disposal of their labour — the 
unrestrained right of access to every part of the colonies— the 
complete security of person and property — and the full enjoyment 
of the rights of conscience. — Central Negro Emancipation Committee, 
to the Right Honourable Lord Glenelg. 



NOTES. 



Note 1— P. 147. 

At Naparima, in Trinidad, a priest named Carrillo ordered an 
Iron bar, with twelve rings, to be made for stocks by the black- 
smith of the quarter, who is also a captain of militia. On its com- 
pletion, he summoned the negroes, lectured them upon the duties 
of obedience and respect; next informed them that those rings 
were made in honour of the twelve apostles ; finally proceeded to 
give the stocks his benediction; sprinkled "holy water" over 
those prototypes of our Saviour; and in order to heighten the 
solemnity of the scene, and reach the climax of blasphemy, the 
priest absolutely placed one of the blacks into the stocks to make 
him sit as godfather. — Extract from a printed Address to Earl 
Bathurst, by an Inhabitant of Trinidad. 



Note 2— P. 148. 

To Lieutenant-Governor Sir George Hill, Bart., the following 
petition of Marie Jeanne, on the part of her daughter Vero- 
nique, a cripple, and now on the treadmill, showeth : 

That, four years ago, Veronique was abandoned by her master, 
Toussaint Leroux, because he thought her worthless as a slave and 



354 NOTES. 

past work, owing to general debility and an ulcerous habit of body, 
occasioned by the hardships she had suffered. She sought an asy- 
lum with a discharged African soldier, named Hunt, by whose care 
she partially recovered, with the loss, however, of the greater part 
of one of her feet. Toussaint Leroux, hearing of this, arrested 
her. Being again badly treated, she ran away ; and again arrested, 
was ordered to jail with one month's hard labour on the treadmill, 
on which I saw my poor child last Wednesday. I implore you not 
to let her, a cripple, a woman, be longer kept at it. 

" I have examined Veronique, and am of opinion she is capable 
of working on the treadmill. The loss of toes does not pre- 
vent it," 

(Signed) "J. Neilson, Physician." 

"4th May, 1835." 

"Whereas Veronique Marie Jeanne having been convicted 
before me this day of being a runaway, was adjudged one month's 
imprisonment and hard labour, these are to command, &c. 

(Signed) "John Cadiz, Special Justice. 

"25 April, 1835. 
" To the Alcayde of the Jail." 



Note 3— P. 149. 

The petition of Anne Harriette John, showeth : 

That she long lived with Dr. Neilson, colonel of the Trinidad 
artillery, and served him so faithfully as to be generally known as 
the doctor's "Black Diamond." 

In consequence of a dispute, Dr. Neilson had her shipped off to 
the distant quarter of Maruga, where she arrived after a voyage of 
nine days. Her transportation was so suddenly effected, that she 
had not time to collect her clothes and little property. She was 
placed on the plantation of Mr. Henry Luney, commandant of 



NOTES. S55 

Maruga, who told her he had bought her cheap on condition of not 
allowing her to come to town until the expiration of her servitude. 
That having been brought up as a favourite domestic, and unac- 
customed to the privations and sufferings of praedial servitude, she 
implores she may be permitted to hire herself out at a fair rate 
from her present owner, until she can make interest with her friends 
to relieve her from bondage. 



Note 4— P. 149. 

The petition of Mary Venus, &c. &c. : 

That she belongs to Mr. Massey, junior, and has worked four 
years on the Bonne Aventure estate. 

On 1st August she heard the negroes were free, but they have 
made her work from six in the morning till eight at night, except 
Sunday, when she and Auguste, her husband, cultivate their own 
garden. 

At the end of May last, she could not work extra in the field, 
being six months gone with child. On Thursday last the manager 
told her he had hired her to Mr. Panten, one of the members of 
council. She said, "I cannot go away from my garden and my 
husband." The manager said he could not help it ; she had better 
speak to Mr. Panten : but this latter' s manager refused a pass ; 
and she being afraid of being taken away by violence, has found 
her way to town, having walked one day and three nights. Mr. 
W. Massey having run away since he was charged with the murder 
of a child he had by his own sister, the petitioner went to his 
brother-in-law, one of the members of council, who told her to go 
back and speak to Mr. Panten ; but as she does not wish to trust 
altogether to Mr.Panten's humanity, she implores your Excellency 
to interfere, &c. 

July 22, 1835. 



356 



Note 5— P. 150. 

Melie, an apprentice labourer, appears before the magistrate, 
and states : 

She pays five dollars per month by way of hire for herself. Her 
master demands an additional sum of one dollar and a half per 
month for her child, aged ten years, who lives with her. 

She cannot pay this latter sum at present, and her master has 
determined to take her child from her, and to send her to an estate 
far away. She implores, &c. 
f 31, 1835. 



Note 6— P. 150. 

Dear Sir, August 17, 1835. 

My wife Margaret is very ill in jail, and causes me sad 
pain and uneasiness. 

I have scraped fifty dollars from my friends, but her master 
wants one hundred. Do, dear Sir, prevail on him to take the fifty, 
and grant me six months to pay the other. For God's sake, do 
something, for the child being confined with the mother is every 
day sick. Pray use your blessed interest, and get the mother and 
child released, and I will be everlastingly grateful. 

(Signed) Louis Simon Plumper, 

Military Labourer. 

Note 7— P. 151. 

October 3, 1835. 

The petition of Thomas Mendoza, otherwise called Mundo Foretop, 

labourer, on the Laurel Hill estate, showeth : 

He is sixty years of age, and has been a driver since 1807. Four 

weeks ago the manager came, in company with another named 

Northington, and abused him for not making the people work 



NOTES. 357 

more ; adding that he would take his appointment from him, and 
send him among the gang. Complainant said, " Oh dear, massa, 
don't ahuse me before the gang; you make me too much 
ashamed." 

Three days after, complainant was ordered to appear before 
Mr. Cadiz, who told him to answer for disobedience of orders. He 
had taken no witnesses with him, not knowing what was to be the 
charge. Mr. Northington said, " He is a damned robber, Sir ; he 
is stealing his master's time by not forcing the gang to work 
more." Mr. Cadiz said, " Old man, I am sorry to see you. I 
remember you a good and trusty servant under Judge Warner, 
your former master, but I must punish you." He then asked 
what witnesses there were ; when Northington replied there was 
none but himself. Mr. Cadiz then sentenced me fourteen days' 
imprisonment. 

I was taken to a boiling house, lately converted into a cachot, 
and there was only a small opening, one foot square, to let in the 
air. The walls were wet, and the mortar which they were plastered 
with was not yet dry. There was no bed nor place, except the 
boards attached to the stocks, to sleep upon. I suffered dread- 
fully. Next day my wife brought me, by the manager's order, two 
pounds of salt fish and two pounds of flour for a week's allowance. 
The jailer, Mr. White, on seeing it, however, mercifully insisted 
more should be sent. At night I suffered so much from cramp, 
that on being let out in the morning for the purposes of nature, I 
could not stand, but was obliged to crawl on my knees and hands. 
On the third day, Mr. Cadiz mercifully moved me to the outer 
room, and at the end of a week I was liberated by order from 
Mr. Cadiz. 

I have saved a little money, and want to know what I could buy 
my freedom for. I am told 300 dollars. I said I am old and 
weary, and could not be worth so much ; but my liberty is refused 
for less. 

I therefore pray you will get me fairly appraised, and I will 
3 pray for you. 



358 



Note 8— P. 151. 

To the Right Honourable Sir G. Hill, Bart. Colonel of the London- 
derry Militia, Lieutenant- Governor, fyc. Sfo. 
The petition of Slamank, otherwise Adam, aged eighty-five years, 
a Mahomedan priest of the Mandingo nation, most humbly 
showeth : 

That he was thirty-five years of age when he was sold into 
slavery ; and notwithstanding his sacred profession, has been forced 
to labour in the fields, and undergo the sufferings and degradation 
of slavery for fifty years. 

That all his family have been separated from him in his old age, 
his children from time to time having been sold ; and that he now 
remains alone on the Marli estate without family or friend. 

That on the 1st August, 1834, the petitioner, then eighty- four 
years old, was told that the King had made him free, but that he 
must still be an apprentice to learn the same trade of digging cane 
which he had been practising for fifty years. 

The petitioner, whose blood had warmed at the prospect of 
enjoying freedom, even for the last few days of his wretched exist- 
ence, must now abandon all hope of living to see the day of bis 
redemption. 

He implores your Excellency to allow him to go free. He was 
born free, and he wishes to die free. He renounces all claim to 
remuneration for fifty years' servitude. The Mandingo church in 
Port of Spain will support him. Extend your protecting arm, O 
your Excellency ! and the petitioner, &c. 

Note 9— P. 153. 

Alguacil Mayor's Office, 20 September, 1832. 
Public notice is hereby given, that on Monday next, the 1st of 
October, there will be exposed and offered for sale before the doors 
of this office the following properties and effects :— 



NOTES. 359 

Two slaves, named Joseph and Celestin, property of Louis 
Rochard. 

A family of six slaves, belonging to Mrs. Redhead, named Fanny, 
George, Thomas, Francois, Mary, and Susan Rosette. 

Two lots of land in York- street. 

A mule, the property of the heirs of Fauseil, and a slave named 
Vedal, belonging to Mr. Mathieu. 



Note 10— P. 163. 

Barbadoes. 

By his Excellency Sir Lionel Smith, K.C.B., Governor-General, 

&c. &c. 

A Proclamation. 

Whereas Lawrence Edwards, late of Searle's estate, in the parish 

of Christ Church, planter, stands charged with having violently and 

feloniously made an assault upon Juliana, an apprenticed labourer 

on the said estate, an infant under the age of twelve years, and 

with violence and against her will ravishing the said Juliana, &c. &c. 

February 18, 1836. 

Note 11— P. 163. 

Mr. , since made commandant of , was accused of 

violating the person of a young negro girl. The evidence of a 
medical man proved the injury, but no notice was taken of 
the transaction by the public authorities, and the delinquent was 
allowed to retain his situation (he was then a deputy commandant), 
and stalk at large — Extract from an Address to Earl Bathurst. 



Note 12— P. 166. 

From these Americans the commandant exacts unlimited obedi- 
ence, compelling them to till his lands and take off his crops. This 



SCO NOTES. 

conduct soon disgusted them, and all who could slipped away, but 
were forced to return. One of them was by orders of Mr. Mitchell, 
the commandant, tied up on the parade ground to a tripod, and 
severely flogged with a cat-o'-nine tails. — Address to Earl Bathurst. 



Note 13— P. 169. 

It is the duty of the commandant to act as coroner ; but during 
the course of twelve years I have never heard of a case in which he 
has exercised the duty. In consequence, the grossest species of 
violence, and even murder, have been committed with impunity. 
Complaint has proved of no avail. 

The captain of a sloop was much addicted to liquor, and in his 
moments of inebriation was wont to beat a negro boy on board 
most unmercifully. The fellow was an excellent swimmer, and 
whenever he saw the captain about to attack him, he would jump 
overboard. One luckless evening, just as the anchor was thrown, 
the boy either fell or was knocked overboard, and contrary to his 
usual custom, did not come up again for some time. Another 
negro on board jumped into the water, and found the poor fellow 
nearly drowned and helpless. On his being brought on deck with 
very slight signs of life, some passengers advised the captain to 
carry him on shore for medical aid; but he refused, and set off 
with his passengers, leaving the boy for the second trip, by which 
time the poor fellow had escaped all the ills " which flesh is heir 
to." The case was made known to the commandant, yet not even 
a reprimand was passed on the drunken and brutal villain. 

A respectable gentleman, Mr. Regis Vincent, was one night 
roused from his bed by the lowing of cattle a short distance from 
his pasture. He desired a negro to go and see what was the mat- 
ter. He went, but never returned. 

The next morning John Burdon, a Scotchman, a neighbour of 
Mr. Vincent, requested him to come over, for there was a negro 
dead in his guin-gross. It appeared that at daylight a man named 



NOTES. 361 

Michel, belonging to the Concord estate, was passing by, and 
seeing some one lying with his face downwards, approached and 
perceived he was dead. As it was close to Burdon's residence, he 
reported the circumstance to him. Burdon expressed astonish- 
ment, and accompanied him to the spot. Michel found a gun- 
stock lying by the dead man, and laying hold of it, said he would 
take it home with him. "No," replied Burdon, "it is mine; I 
left it there yesterday." About eight o'clock the writer proceeded 
to the spot, along with another person, and saw the unfortunate 
negro lying with his face imbedded in earth and blood, with one 
clog on, and his cutlass by his side. The writer also saw the head 
examined, and the removal of the flaps to each ear presented a 
frightful scene of violence. The bones of the temple on both sides 
were perfectly broken to atoms, and the fracture extended to the 
very base of the skull, whilst three wounds, inflicted with some 
sharp-pointed instrument, penetrated deep into the brain. Who 
murdered that negro ? was the natural question. A long chain of 
circumstantial evidence created a suspicion that Burdon was the 
assassin, and that he had committed the act in a fit of drunkenness 
and anger, in revenge for the depredations on his Guinea grass. 
The presumption was strengthened by the situation and condition 
of the gun-stock. But the case was suffered to die away : no coro- 
ner's inquest was held ; no evidence heard ; no inquiry made : and 
the commandant satisfied his conscience by affixing on the door of 
a shop a notice, offering "the reward of one hundred dollars" for 
the apprehension of the murderer of that unfortunate negro. 

About two years before this, this same Burdon fired at and 
severely wounded a young coloured boy in the legs, but the occur- 
rence was entirely overlooked. 



I 



362 NOTES. 



Note 14— P. 187. 

By his Excellency Sir Lewis Grant, K.C.H., Governor and Com- 
mander-in-Chief, &c. &c. 

Whereas the registry of the Court of Vice- Admiralty in and for 
the said Island of Trinidad, was forcibly broken open and entered 
by some evil disposed person or persons, during the night of Satur- 
day the 10th inst, or the morning of the 11th, and certain informa- 
tions and other proceedings, relating to causes then and yet pending 
before the said court, or heretofore instituted and concluded therein, 
stolen, taken, and carried away ; and whereas it is expedient that 
the author or authors, and all others concerned, or in any wise 
taking part in so lawless and daring an outrage, should be brought 
to justice and punished : Now therefore I do hereby offer a reward 
of 200Z., &c. &c. 

Port of Spain, November 12, 1832. 



Note 15—P. 200. 

Trinidad. 
By his Excellency Sir George Hill, Bart., Colonel of the London- 
derry Militia, Lieutenant-Governor, &c. 

Whereas during the night of the 24th the office of the Escribano 
of the Court of First Instance was forcibly entered, and certain 
proceedings, then pending before the said court, were stolen and 
carried away; and whereas the future interests of the community, 
and the injured justice of the country, demand that the perpetrator 
of this daring outrage should be discovered, I hereby offer a reward 
of 200Z. &c. &c. 

April 26, 1833. 

" On the eve of the day appointed for the trial, it was the mishap 
of justice to be thwarted by one of the most daring and villanous of 
midnight robberies, that could blacken the pages of the Newgate 
Calendar." — Colonial Observe*): 



363 



Note 16— P. 216. 



To the Lieutenant-Governor of Trinidad. 

The petition of Josef da Costa, a free Portuguese by birth, but 
now an apprenticed labourer, &c. &c. 

That he came to Trinidad on certain conditions, and sailed from 
Fayal on October 31st, 1834. He and twenty-seven others were 
clandestinely landed on the north coast, before the vessel had been 
reported at the custom-house. They found nine of their country- 
men already there, four of whom shortly afterwards died in great 
misery. There was no medical man nor priest. 

The petitioner and the rest, fifteen days after their arrival, were 
carried to Mr. Graham's estate at Chaguanas. There they re- 
mained two months, where they worked with the negroes in the 
field. The consequence was, they all became sick, and many died. 
Petitioner and his wife were, through the humanity of Mr. Graham, 
removed to town, and placed in Marie Ursule's hospital, where his 
unhappy wife died. After this, his services were bought by one 
Mr. Losh, and he was sent down the coast, where he was badly 
treated, and when unable to work as the negroes did, cruelly 
beaten. To escape from this misery, he left the estate on the 18th 
of the present month, and is now lying in the town in the last 
stage of misery and starvation. He humbly implores his case to 
be inquired into. 

"Witness, A. Shaw. Josef da Costa. 

July 29, 1835. 

Note 17— P. 219. 

To the Lieutenant-Governor, fyc. 

Francisco Josef da Sorsa states : — 

He was ordered to the Retrench estate, of which Mr. Higgins is 
manager, and where he experienced much ill treatment. He, his 
wife, and children, often asked leave to quit; being refused, he 
attempted several times to escape, but failed. In one of these 



364 NOTES. 

attempts, on 10th July, he was arrested, and imprisoned for one 
month in the cachot at Petit Bourg. 

At the same cachot, at this time, were three other Portuguese 
imprisoned : Antonio Francisco Doutra, Francisco Doutra da Silva, 
and Antonio Ignacio Nunez. They were all placed in the stocks 
four days and four nights. During their imprisonment the only 
allowance given them was a small loaf of bread, much smaller than 
the half-bitt loaf sold in Port of Spain, and a bottle of water. The 
cachot is eight feet square, but no windows ; both doors were kept 
shut except for a short time, when bread and water were brought. 
Those who were able went out at this time to obey the calls of 
nature. At last, when they were all sick, there was no one to 
clean the filth, which accumulated in the room. There was no bed 
nor bedding ; they lay on the bare ground. Doutra and Silva 
were very ill : during the whole month that deponent was in the 
cachot, they were not visited by any medical man. On 3d August, 
Nunez, who appeared to be dying, was carried back to the estate 
on a mule. On 10th August, deponent was taken out of the pri- 
son, but was unable to walk. On inquiring for Ignacio Nunez, he 
found he had died three days after he had left the cachot. De- 
ponent further swears that his wife Maria, together with her chil- 
dren, is detained against her will on the estate. 

Sworn on the holy Evangelists of Almighty God and the sign of 
the cross. 



Note 18— P. 220. 

Before the poor man could deliver the letter into your Excel- 
lency's hands, he was seized and incarcerated in the cachot of 
Benjamin Hughes, the policeman. Hearing this morning of his 
illegal imprisonment, I made inquiries, which however have only 
caused an aggravation of his sufferings, for he has since been 
shipped off to the coast. — Extract of a Letter to Sir G. Hill, Bart., 
bearing date Trinidad, 12th November, 1835, 



365 



Note 19— P. 221. 



San Fernando, July 15, 1835. 

On Monday, a Portuguese woman and two children, in a pitiable 
state of health, came down here to go to Port of Spain with her 
husband. It seems the man had not leave, as, when he was going 
on board, he was seized by the manager and Captain Murray's 
alguazils, by whom he was handcuffed. The woman remained to 
share her husband's fate. Two other Portuguese, who had assisted 
the poor family through the mud with their two children, were also 
arrested, handcuffed, tried, condemned, and put into the Bella 
lock-up house in the stocks. All this was done without an inter- 
preter, and not a soul understanding a word of their language. 

Just this moment I have seen a letter from the overseer of the 
Vista Bella to Captain Murray's clerk, informing him that this 
morning, the third day, one of the prisoners was near dead from 
starvation and suffering, and that he had taken it on himself (they 
don't belong to the Bella Vista) to relieve him, being afraid the 
man is dying, and adds that the other two are very ill ; no doubt, 
he coolly observes, for want of food. 

Is there no Christian to do something for these poor strangers ? 
For God's sake, try and make known these things where they will 
be attended to. 

Note 20— P. 223. 

Josef Francisco Maciedo, a native of Fayal, states: — . 

That, in November last, he was brought to Trinidad by Mr. 
Searle ; and that he belongs, as he has been told, to Mr. Losh 
(partner of one of the members of council, Mr. Burnley), to whom 
Mr. Searle sold his services under such circumstances as can never 
be accomplished on one side, nor ever will on the other ; conse- 
quently the petitioner must remain a slave during the term of his 
natural life, or, rather, until the term of his natural life be 
abridged. 

R 3 



366 NOTES, 

The petitioner's wife and one of his children have already expired 
in a miserable manner ; and his other children are dependent for 
a precarious meal upon what little charity they can find. The peti- 
tioner's appearance will vouch for the misery he is reduced to. 
But his case is not singular. Almost all his countrymen have 
suffered equally : half of them have been delivered by death, while 
the remainder are fast following, without a priest even to console 
them on the way. 

I have been beaten and flogged, and otherwise maltreated. I 
escaped about ten days ago, with the marks on my body, which I 
have shown to many people. 

(Signed) Josef Francisco Maciedo. 

Witness, A. Shaw. 

Trinidad, July 29, 1835. 

T certify having seen the marks of stripes on the body of this 
unhappy man, who also appeared in the last stage of sickness. 
(Signed) Young Anderson, Solicitor. 

Note 21— P. 223. 

To the Lieutenant-Governor, fyc. 
Manuel Furta da Branquinho and his wife, Mariana Francisca, 

showeth : 
They came here on 22d November last. They were sold for 
three years to Mr. Losh. Four of their children have since died ; and 
they implore your Excellency to interpose, to relieve them from a 
slavery worse than that to which the negroes have been subjected. 

Note 22— P. 223. 

Jose Francisco and Maria Ignacia, his wife, were cajoled from 
their native country Fayal. They were imported by Mr. Searle, 
who sold them to Mr. Bush for 100 round dollars each. They 
signed a paper, of which they knew nothing, and they now find 



NOTES. 



367 



themselves in slavery. They have been forced to work from six in 
the morning until six, seven, eight, at night, without sufficient 
food. Maria Ignacia, a white woman of delicate constitution, has 
been turned into the field, and forced to dig the earth with a hoe 
under a dreadful sun. 

They implore your Excellency, &c. 



Note 23- 
(Signed) 

Antonio Ignacio, 
Manuel Ignacio da Sosa, 
Manuel da Rosa Silviera, 
Josef Furtado Prai, 
Joas Silviera, 
Manuel da Rosa, 
Juan Prayl, 
Gualberto da Silviera, 
Maria Rita, 

Josef Francisco da Madeira, 
Francisco Prenea, 
Francisco di' Riego Silva, 
Dominguez Fernandez, 
Emilia da huma Ijlha, 



P. 225. 

Antonio da Rosa Keua, 

Francisca Tomasa, 

Reta Tomasa, 

Anna da Silva, 

Manuel Joaquin, 

Francisco da Palo, 

Antonio Garcia, 

Manuel Ribeiro, 

Josef da Rosa Fortad, 

Manuel Prai, 

Josef Amaro, 

Manuel Francisco da Madeira, 

Josef Francisco, 

Antonio Francisco, &c. 



I to the original. 

" I certify that the above marks and signatures are those of the 
individuals whose names are attached thereto, and that I have 
explained the contents of the petition to them in the Spanish lan- 
guage, repeated in Portuguese by Manuel Gilberto da Silviera. 

" I wish it to be clearly understood that I know the contents to 
be true, and pledge myself to substantiate the same by evidence 
before any tribunal, should I be called up and authorized so to do. 
(Signed) " Young Anderson." 



363 



Note 24— P. 270. 

Government House, 31st July, 1834. 

To give security to the town and neighbourhood at this particu- 
lar juncture, I have deemed it advisable to require the services of 
a proportion of the militia, and have the satisfaction to state to you, 
as commanding officer of the troops, that a sufficient number from 
the royal and loyal regiments have volunteered their services to 
enable me to establish the guards, of which I herewith enclose a 
detail. These guards are to be mounted this day before six o'clock, 
at the respective alarm posts noted. 

I request you to acquaint me what is the practice with respect 
to the giving of the sign and countersign. 

I have directed Mr. Murphy, of the dragoons, the bearer, to say 
that I have ordered two of the militia dragoons to be on duty at 
St. James's, &c. &c. 

(Signed) G. F. Hill. 

To Lieutenant- Colonel Hardy. 

Note 26— P. 275. 

Port of Spain, August 1st, 1834. 
His Excellency has directed me to inform you that there are a 
great number of apprentice labourers at Government House, and 
many more coming into town from various quarters, and to request 
you will send a company of your regiment. 

(Signed) Stephen Rothery. 

Colonel Hardy. 

Note 27— P. 277. 

1st August. 
The number of negroes arrived and arriving induces me to be of 
opinion you should send in more than thirty men. I am anxious 
to see you and to advise with you. 






NOTES. 369 

The danger will be great, if the town apprentices join and coalesce 
with those from the country. 

Colonel Hardy. G. F. Hill. 

[On the back of the above letter is the following memorandum, 
in the handwriting of Colonel Hardy : — 

" No more men were sent on this requisition. I went into the 
town about twelve o'clock, and remained until half-past six or 
seven. Nothing like a mob, so called. About 200 poor creatures, 
two-thirds of whom were women, were at Government House ; 
orderly, silent, and distinguished by their respectful demeanour. 
They bore their disappointment and torrents of rain, without one 
mark of even anger, for six hours. From ten to seventeen men 
and women were sent to jail."] 

Note 28— P. 286. 

August 2d. 
Sir, — May I beg that the chief of police, gaoler, or any other 
individual, may be requested to abstain from ordering the gaol, or 
any other guard to load their muskets, a measure quite unneces- 
sary and unmilitary. Last night, at six o'clock, the corporal and 
his guard were ordered to load their pieces, in which condition 
they marched into barracks this morning. 

(Signed) H. Hardy, Lieutenant- Colonel 

To the Secretary to Government. 

Note 29— P. 290. 

Government House, 2d August. 
After witnessing the violence of the mob this evening, I am 
under the necessity of requiring a reinforcement of the main 
guard to be sent here forthwith. 

All the Naparima negroes are on march to town. 

(Signed) G. F. Hill. 

Lieutenant- Colonel Hardy. 



370 



Note 30— r. 292. 

August 3d. 
I request you will inform the Lieutenant-Governor that I rode 
through the several streets in Port of Spain last night between 
nine and ten o'clock, and found the utmost silence and tranquil- 
lity, a state of good order which continued all night. I left the 
town a little after daylight this morning. 

(Signed) H. Hardy. 

To the Secretary to Government. 



Note 31— P. 296. 

August 4th. 
I beg you will report to his Excellency the perfect tranquillity 
and stillness of the town during the whole of last night. I passed 
through several streets, from nine to eleven o'clock, at intervals, 
and again between four and five this morning. I have the satis- 
faction of giving his Excellency the foregoing assurance on my 
own observations. 

(Signed) H. Hardy. 

To the Secretary to Government. 



Note 32— P. 296. 

Colonial Secretary's Office, Mh August. 
Sir, 

I am directed by his Excellency to state that the addition 
of a company of the 19th regiment to the guard at Government 
House is absolutely necessary in the present state of the town ; 
and his Excellency requests that that reinforcement may be sent 
within as short a period, &c. 

(Signed) P. D. Souper. 

To Lieutenant- Colonel Hardy. 



NOTES. 371 



Note 33— P. 304. 

August 5th. 
I have the honour to report that a detachment of the 19th regi- 
ment, detailed in the margin, proceeded yesterday evening, at six 
o'clock, to Port of Spain. They are to be quartered in a large 
room, attached to Government House, in the town, where, up to 
this moment, every thing is perfectly quiet. The assemblages of 
negroes appear to have been for the greater part women. 

(Signed) H. Hardy. 

Lieut.-Col. Bridgeman, Deputy- Adjutant-General. 



Note 34— P. 310. 

Sir, St. James's, August 6. 

Having heard that application has been made to the 
Major-General commanding the forces in this country for addi- 
tional troops, I take the liberty to request you will inform me to 
what extent troops may have been asked for, and whether any 
arrangement has been made for the quarters of additional numbers, 
should they arrive. 

(Signed) H. Hardy. 

The Hon. P. D. Souper, Secretary to Government. 

Sir, St. James's, August 10. 

The Colonial Government having applied to Barbadoes 
for 200 additional troops, I have to request that an arrangement 
may be made for their quarters, and that you will be prepared with 
the necessary barrack equipment for that number of men. 

(Signed) H. Hardy. 

To Capt. M'Intosh, Barrack Master. 



372 



THE MARTYRED SMITH. 

The memory of this just man is still loaded with obloquy in 
British Guiana. Not only does his name stand on the judicial 
records of the colony as a convicted felon, sentenced to death, 
but in the memorials of the events which have marked its black 
history, he is mentioned in the same terms. 

It will be remembered by those who took a deep interest in the 
fate of this intelligent, pious, and devoted missionary, that the 
Government of the' day merely commuted the sentence of death, 
passed on him by a court-martial, into perpetual banishment from 
the colony, leaving the stigma of crime attached to his fair fame. 
Before the decision of the Government, however, reached the 
colony, worn out by disease, the result of anxiety, confinement, 
and exertion, this good man died in jail, and was buried at mid- 
night in the common burial-ground, where not a shrub or stone 
marks the spot where his body was interred. 

That the Missionary Society with which he was connected — that 
the religious body to which he was attached in this country — should 
have taken no steps to vindicate the honour of one of their very 
best agents and associates, is surprising ; we trust, however, that 
as the proofs, not only of his legal, but of his moral innocence, are 
still a oe, immediate steps will be taken to wipe from his 

j ul blot which colonial malice has attached to it. 

At all the iniquitous sentence must be reversed ; and no 

individual is so capable of obtaining posthumous justice for the 
martyred Smith as his fearless and most eloquent advocate in 
parliament, the Right Honourable Lord Brougham, 



JAN i - 



R. CLAY, PRINTER, BREAD-STREET-HILL. 









